Nomos 18

ISLANDS OFF CARIA, Kos. Circa 350-345 BC. Tetradrachm (Silver, 24 mm, 15.10 g, 6 h), Kidaridas. Bearded head of Herakles to left, wearing lion’s skin headdress. Rev. ΚΩΙΟΝ / ΚΙΔΑΡΙΔΑΣ Crab with club below; all within square border of dots. Apparently with an unpublished magistrate, but cf. Pixodarus 12 and 20 (both struck from the same obverse die, O5, but in the names, respectively, of ΘΕΟΔΟΤΟΣ and ΝΕΣΤΟΡΙΔΑΣ). Extremely rare, if not unique with this magistrate. Lightly toned, clear and well-centered. Minor die rust, otherwise, extremely fine.

The corpus of Kos by Stephanaki lacks this magistrate, but certainly does contain illustrations of this obverse die. However, her system lacks die numbers so cross referencing with it, for both the obverse and reverse die of the present coin (our reverse die with Kidaridas was recut and reused - perhaps by Nestoridas) is so cumbersome that it is not worth using.