ALEXANDER THE GREAT GOLD STATER – LIFETIME ISSUE OF AMPHIPOLIS – CHOICE XF NGC GRADED GREEK MACEDONIAN KINGDOM COIN (Inv. 19661)

$6,200.00

19661. MACEDONIAN KINGDOM. ALEXANDER III, THE GREAT, 336–323 BC.
Gold Stater, 8.60 g, 18 mm. Lifetime issue of Amphipolis, 328/5–323 BC.
Obv. Head of Athena right, wearing large Corinthian helmet with snake ornament below the plume. Rev. ΑΛΕΞΑΝΔΡΟΥ, Nike standing, looking left, holding wreath in right hand and stylis over left shoulder, cantharos in left field.
Price 168.
Ex Wild Rose Collection, previously ex Dr. Plumacher Collection, Peus 431, 4/27/2022, lot 3157, purchased from Münzhandlung Ritter on 8/21/1998.
NGC graded CHOICE XF, Strike 5/5, Surface 3/5, “edge marks,” a lifetime issue struck from an attractive obverse die with a full head Nike reverse. The Pella database currently lists 11 specimens in the American Numismatic Society, Münzkabinett Berlin and the British Museum.

The staters of Alexander the Great were introduced to finance his conquest of the Persian Empire, but their popular types lived on to be reproduced and imitated by cities and kings well into the second century BC. The types are thought to have been originally intended to channel the old Greek desire for revenge against Persia for the invasion of Greece in 480–479 BC by referring to Athens (destroyed by Xerxes I in 480 BC) in the representation of Athena and to the Greek victory over the Persian fleet at the Battle of Salamis (480 BC) in the depiction of Nike holding a naval stylis (mast and cross arm). However, over time the Hellenic propaganda of the types was gradually lost and came to represent “good money” to later coin users.