114 / 120
Extremely Rare
¼
Shekel of Tyre
238
Phoenicia, Tyre. Silver 1/4 Shekel (3.28 g), ca. 126/5 BC-AD 65/6. Year 2 (125/4 BC). Laureate bust of
Melkart right. Rev.
TUROU
IER
[
AS
K
]
AI
ASULOU
, eagle standing left on prow, palm on far
wing; in left field, date (L B) and club; in right field, Mmonogram; lacking Phoenician letter between eagle’s
legs. (DCA 923; DCA Suppl. 6.1 (this coin).)
An extremely rare denomination for the series.
Toned. Choice
very fine.
$ 2,500
ex Freeman & Sear (March 10, 1991), lot 226
ex Superior (May 31,1988), lot 1559.
In the introduction to his extensive catalogue of Tyre’s final silver coinage, the famous Melkart/Eagle series, Cohen states “[this]
first photographic supplement to DCA is by no means complete. It encompasses 589 different varieties of these coins, defined by
their varying dates, monograms, Phoenician letters and four denominations in silver. These include photographs for 365 shekels,
104 half shekels, 3 quarter shekels and 2 eighth shekels” (p. 9). These numbers serve to illustrate more than just the varieties of the
coins; they indicate the extreme rarity of the smaller fractional issues as a type, with Tyrian 1/4 shekels being only 0.82% as common
as shekels, and the even rarer 1/8 shekels being on 0.55% as common. Also of interest is that all Melkart/Eagle series issues have a
Phoenician letter between the eagle’s legs, either
aleph
or
bet
with the single exception of this 1/4 shekel, which is lacking any letter
in that position.
PLEASE SEE ADDITIONAL CATALOG FOR MORE FINE
OFFERINGS OF ANCIENT AND WORLD COINS