Nomos 18

CYPRUS. Lapethos. Uncertain king, circa 425 BC. Stater (Silver, 21 mm, 11.24 g, 2 h). Head of Athena to left, wearing crested Corinthian helmet; on the bowl, possible traces of a palmette, but apparently erased in the die. Rev. Head of bearded Herakles to right, wearing lion's skin headdress; all within incuse square. ACGC 1094. BMFA Suppl. 253 (same dies, but with visible palmette). C.M. Kraay, The Celenderis Hoard, NC 1962, p. 11, 8a-c (same dies, but with visible palmette). Extremely rare. A sharp, bright and lustrous, well-struck and very attractive example. Striking crack, otherwise, extremely fine.

From a Bavarian collection, formed beginning in the 1960s and ending in the 1990s.

Examples are known struck from this obverse die, but with a visible palmette (as Leu 28, 1981, 189 = Triton XVII, 2014, 355 = NAC 100, 2017, 165 and the Boston piece). There are no signs of a flat strike here, nor are there any traces of a scrape or damage; thus, what we must have is an example of a repaired die. Perhaps the die may have become severely damaged in the area of the palmette, with the result that the mint engraver repaired it by smoothing off the design. The other possibility, and this may be correct, is that what we have here is the original die state, with the palmette being added subsequently!.