
This had been billed as the most valuable and comprehensive grouping of coins from the classical world ever to go on the market. [...] The most expensive lot, a spectacular facing head gold stater featuring the head of a bearded satyr and the figure of a winged griffin, sold for $3.25m – a record for an Ancient Greek coin. The piece came from Pantikapaion, a colony on the Black Sea and has been described by coinage experts as “a masterpiece of Ancient Greek art”.Pantikapaion is near today's Kerch on the eastern tip of the Crimean peninsula in Ukraine. So when and how did this coin leave the region where it was dug up in the hinterland of the colony? How did it end up in the collection in the UK?
Elizabeth Paton, 'Ancient Greek coins fetch record $25m', Financial Times January 6, 2012.
Vignette: Centre Point, London.
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