Nomos 2

SIKYONIA, Sikyon. Circa 340s/330s BC. Triobol (Silver, 2.52 g 5). ΣΙ Chimaera prowling to right on ground line. Rev. Dove flying to right. BCD 237 (this coin). BMC -. Traité -. . Extremely rare. Beautifully toned, a superb coin, perhaps the finest in existence, good extremely fine.

From the BCD Collection, LHS 96, 8 May 2006, 237 and ex Bank Leu 53, 21 October 1991, 92.

Sikyon was one of the most prolific mints of mainland Greece, producing enormous numbers of Aeginetan weight staters, drachms, triobols, fractions and bronzes. Yet, many of the individual issues involved turn out to be very rare. This piece comes from one of those groups: it is missing from almost every major collection and normally is only found in very poor condition. Perhaps its naturalistic looking Chimaera, who is clearly prowling rather than prancing the way he does on most of Sikyon’s main stream issues, was not deemed appropriate or was thought to be somehow ‘old fashioned’ - Chimaeras like this do appear on some of Sikyon’s earlier issues. In any case, this rather short-lived issue was soon replaced by vast numbers of more standard pieces with ‘rampant’ Chimaeras.