Lot 185: Cilicia, Lalassis. 1st century B.C. Æ dichalkon.

Cilicia, Lalassis. 1st century B.C. Æ dichalkon (16 mm, 2.61 g, 11 h). ΛΑΛΑC-CΕΩΝ, Aphrodite, nude from the waist up, standing facing, head left, holding flower and scepter / ΔΙΧΑΛ-ΚΟΝ, scorpion. SNG BN -; SNG Levante 562-3; SNG von Aulock 5695; M&M Deutschland 19 (Righetti pt. 7), 136. Extremely rare - the sixth known coin of all types from this mint. Green patina, light roughness. Very fine.

From the Scorpion Collection.

Coins from Lalassis are extremely rare. Mionnet lists only 2, Von Aulock 1 and Imhoof 1 of all types. Levante had three coins from the mint in his collection: two being the same as our coin (and one of which is the von Aulock specimen), the third coin noted in his catalogue as possibly a forgery and after his death sold "as-is, no returns" by CNG. With the addition of the Righetti specimen (M&M Deutschland 19, 136) and our coin, and excluding the possible (probable) forgery from the Levante Collection, it brings the corpus of all known coins from the mint to a grand total of six specimens. Levante 562, the better of his two specimens, recently sold in Triton XVIII (5 January 2015), 686. Admittedly it is nicer than our coin, but ours is not much inferior. It realized just shy of $4000 after adding in the buyer's premium.

• Offered By: Barry P. Murphy
• Lot #: 185
• Listing #: 174818
• Closed: Friday, September 16, 2016 6:01:20 PM CT
• Estimate: $300
• Collection: Scorpion Collection