Nomos 15

ISLANDS OFF ATTICA, Aegina. Circa 480-457 BC. Stater (Silver, 22 mm, 12.40 g), "Large skew" reverse. Sea turtle with line of five large pellets down the back of its shell, and two smaller ones at the collar; between each of the large pellets, an oblong spacer (as the architectural bead and reel pattern). Rev. Square incuse with large skew pattern. BMC -. Milbank -. SNG Lockett 1974 (this coin). An extremely rare variety of great interest. Toned and virtually as found. About extremely fine.

From the collection of R.C. Lockett, IX, Glendining & Co., 27 May 1959, 1737 (part), and from that of C. S. Bement, Naville VII, 23 June 1924, 1140.

This nice, but seemingly ordinary, Aeginetan stater is actually a rather exciting, albeit enigmatic, coin! The staters of Aegina were produced in colossal numbers (anyone trying to do a die study would probably go insane!); given their high relief and the fact that some circulated for several hundred years, many appear virtually as lumps of silver. People tend to 'see' them but not 'look' at them. Thus, when this coin appeared in Naville VII, Hirsch made no mention of the extraordinary arrangement of pellets on the turtle's shell, nor did Lockett when he published the same coin in his sylloge. Rather intriguingly, the experts at CNG did not notice a similar pellet arrangement when they had an earlier example with a small skew reverse (eSale 210, 25 - the only turtle of this type out of the 259 illustrated in the CNG archive: though it is quite possible that the buyer of this coin realized its unusual nature, given its final price). So what can we say about this coin? It could be that the engraver of this obverse die simply got bored with just making large dots on the turtle's shell and, influenced by the bead and reel molding used in architecture (apparently invented in the 6th century - it is related to the egg and dart molding), decided to make the turtle shell somewhat monumental.