London sale offers '$2.5m' Greek coins of exceptional quality and rarity

 

Morton & Eden, the specialist London coin and medal auctioneers, has announced an important single-owner sale of ancient Greek coins.

The collection will be offered in London on Monday October 24 and is expected to realise a total of £1m-1.5m ($2,452,370).

Being sold anonymously, the collection was formed over the last 50 years. It comprises 168 individual coins covering mainly the archaic and classical periods (6th to 4th centuries BC).

Many significant examples were purchased in the 1960s and 70s which are only now being returned to the market having been previously unavailable to present-day collectors.

The owner of the collection has researched and recorded the provenance of each coin to be offered and details will be incorporated within the fully illustrated sale catalogue.

Collectors will be getting new money
for old Greek coins at Morton & Eden's
sale, on October 24


Highlights in the sale will includea Sicilian tetradrachm (an Ancient Greek silver coin equivalent to four drachmae) of Naxos, circa 460 BC, showing the head of Dionysus, God of Wine, and on the reverse, his companion or silenus, seated drunkenly holding a wine cup to his lips.

The design of this coin has been attributed to the Aitna Master and is considered to be a Greek masterpiece of early classical art.

The example has an unbroken provenance going back to an important auction at Hirsch in Munich in 1907. It is estimated at £100,000-150,000.

Other auction highlights will include a Sicilian tetradrachm of Syracuse, circa 465 BC by the Demareteion Master, formerly in the Gillet (Kunstfreund) collection sold in Zurich in 1974. It carries a £30,000-40,000 estimate.

Given the exceptional quality and rarity of these numismatic specimens, it's more than likely that collectors will raise their bids to match these significant estimates in London, next month.

 

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