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Coin-in-hand video (imgur).
Greek (Post-Hellenistic), Roman (Quasi-Provincial, Late Republican/Imperatorial Era).
Messenia, Messene AR Hemidrachm (2.25g, 16mm, 10h), struck under Polykles (Magistrate), c. 35 BCE.
Obverse: Diademed head of Zeus facing right.
Reverse: ME – Σ, ΠO – ΛV, and KΛ – HΣ in three lines bisected by tripod altar, all surrounded by olive wreath.
References: BCD Peloponnesos II 2327 (this coin) = Grandjean 203g (D125/R171 – this coin).
Provenance: Sammlung Kommerzienrat H. Otto, Stuttgart [Heinrich Otto, Jr. (1856-1931)];
Adolph Hess Nachf. Auktion 207 (Lucerne, 1 December 1931), Lot 493, illustrated on Plate 12;
John A Sawhill (1892-1976) Collection;
James Madison University Foundation (Sawhill Bequest);
Stack’s Public Auction (New York, 1979 March 15), Lot 157 (part of/not illustrated);
BCD Collection;
Classical Numismatic Group Mail-Bid Sale 81, P. 2, “BCD Peloponnesos, Part II” (Lancaster, PA, 20 May 2009), Lot 2327;
Fritz Rudolph Künker GmbH Auktion 341 (Osnabrück, 1 Oktober 2020), Lot 5526 [Unsold];
Künker Electronic Auktion 69 (Osnabrück, 30 November 2021), Lot 31.
Note: Presumably struck in Greece under control Antony and Cleopatra. Struck during the Roman Civil Wars, as Alan S. Walker wrote in Nomos 1 (Lot 76), “produced in the years just before Actium when [Mark] Antony and Cleopatra held Greece against Octavian”. This issue may have been struck shortly before the Battle of Actium and then hoarded or buried after Antony and Cleopatra’s defeat, since what scarce examples survive are almost universally in high states of preservation. A very high proportion of those on the market appear to have been in the BCD Collection at one time.