SELEUCUS I SILVER ALEXANDER TYPE TETRADRACHM – ACADEMICALLY IMPORTANT OVERSTRIKE ON AN ELEPHANT CHARIOT ISSUE – VF GREEK SELEUCID KINGDOM COIN (Inv. 21534).

$1,250.00

21534. SELEUCID KINGDOM. SELEUCUS I, 312–281 BC.
Silver Tetradrachm of Alexander type, 16.54 g, 29 mm. Issue of Uncertain Mint 1, in Cappadocia, eastern Syria, or northern Mesopotamia, ca. 294–281 BC.
Obv. Head of young Heracles right in lion skin headdress. Rev. ΣEΛEYKOY BAΣIΛEΩΣ, Zeus enthroned left, holding eagle and scepter, ΛY in left field.
SC 50.3; HGC 9, 12b.
VF, overstruck on a Seleucid elephant chariot tetradrachm.

The host coin used for this overstrike tetradrachm has important implications for the chronology of the coinage of Seleucus I. The traces of the host type beneath the seated figure of Zeus appear to be the laureate head of Zeus used as the obverse type for the elephant chariot tetradrachms struck at Seleucia on the Tigris (SC 130). For another example of an issue of Uncertain Mint 1 overstruck on an elephant chariot issue, see Nomos, Obolos 36, 23 February 2025, lot 460 (SC 50. 3), where the details of the host obverse and reverse are clearer. In Seleucid Coins, the elephant chariot series was originally dated to ca. 296–281 BC, which is a little problematic in light of the presence of SC 50 in the Ankara Hoard (IGCH 1399), a deposit probably closed in the period ca. 294/3–290 BC. In this case, one would expect that Uncertain Mint 1 was overstriking elephant chariot tetradrachms almost as soon as Seleucia began issuing them. Hoard chronology and iconographic considerations have led the authors of the forthcoming second edition of Seleucid Coins to raise the date for the introduction of the elephant chariot coinage to shortly after 301 BC. This leaves much more time for the elephant chariot series to enter production before examples were overstruck by Uncertain Mint 1. Presumably, the overstriking took place because Uncertain Mint 1 was producing coinage destined for use in the west, where Alexander types were widely recognized, but the elephant chariot type regularly circulated only in Babylonia and the Upper Satrapies.