Nomos 37

CYCLADES, Uncertain, Keos (?). Karthaia (?). Circa 540-520/515 BC. Obol (Silver, 8 mm, 0.92 g). Krater with two handles. Rev. Quadripartite incuse square with one quadrant seemingly diagonally divided . Papageorgiadou-Banis -. Sheedy -. But see: 1) Naville VII, Bement II, 23 June, 1924, 1325 (struck from the same obverse die -and possibly the same reverse); and 2) Nomos 26, Collection sans Pareille, 389, Naville I, Pozzi, 1921, 2015 and G. Hirsch Nachf. 272, 2011, 287 (certainly from the same obverse die). Extremely rare, attractive old cabinet toning. Minor marks and with a die break on the reverse, otherwise, good very fine.

From a collection in the United Kingdom and that of Comte Chandon De Brialles, Bourgey, 17 June, 1959, 392 (there bought by Spink).

It should be noted that Sheedy, pp. 24 ff., has convincingly disproved the old attribution, tentatively followed by the Hirsch cataloguer, of all coins with amphorae to Andros (in any case, the vessel on this coin is actually a wide-mouthed volute krater - a wine mixing bowl, and not an amphora; it is also clearly not a hydria). As such, the attribution to the city of Karthaia on Keos is reasonable, (could it be that the attribution was actually made by the late Serge Boutin, 1910-1998, the well-known Parisian coin dealer whose own great collection of coins of the Cyclades was sold in M&M 76 in 1991). What is particularly suggestive is the incuse square on the reverse, which is basically the same as that used for the first two series of Karthaian silver.