Athens New Style "Owl" Tetradrachm

Attribution: Greece (Attica). Athens. Polis of Athens. c. 120/119 BC. AR. tetradrachm.

Obverse: Head of Athena right, wearing a triple-crested Attic helmet: the bowl decorated with a vine scroll, a Pegasos above the raised cheek-piece, and the foreparts of four horses above the visor. The eye is in true profile and the modeling is full and Hellenistic — a head derived from Pheidias' cult statue in the Parthenon rather than from the archaizing face of the fifth-century owls.

Reverse: Owl standing facing on an overturned Panathenaic amphora, the whole within a closed olive wreath. Names in the fields: Α-ΘΕ across the top, then the two annual magistrates ΑΦΡΟ-ΔΙΣΙ and ΔΙΟ-ΓΕ, and below them the monthly official ΕΥ-ΜΑ. The letter Β on the amphora gives the month; a double cornucopia bound with fillets stands in the right field as the year's control symbol; ΜΕ appears in the exergue. The flan is broad and thin, the fabric of a Hellenistic stephanephoros rather than of a classical owl.

Weight: 16.71 g (slab label) (The NGC label's figure, confirmed independently by the sale cataloguing. The coin is sealed and is staying sealed, so this is the best weight that will ever exist for it — not a placeholder for a weighing to come.) · 29 mm · axis 330°  Reference: Thompson 545a; HGC 4, 1602