A coin from Crimea was sold at an auction for a record price (photo)

A coin from Crimea was sold at an auction for a record price (photo)


At the Numismatica Ars Classica auction in Zurich, a coin from Pantikapeia, a Greek colony located on the site of modern Kerch on the eastern coast of Crimea, was sold for a record price. This is reported by The Art Newspaper.

Photo: pixabay.com 1

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A coin minted in the 4th century BC was sold to an anonymous buyer for more than 4.8 million pounds sterling. This sum set a new record for antique coins sold at auction.

Obverse

The obverse of the coin depicts the head of a satyr.

Reverse

The reverse depicts a griffin with a spear in its mouth.

Specialists claim that the image of the satyr in three quarters makes the coin special. It is also believed that there are only three copies of it, and it is impossible to buy the other two, because they are in museum collections.

The ancient city of Pantikapei was part of the Bosporus kingdom. The image of a satyr on the coin can be a reference to the king of the Spartakid dynasty, Satyr I, who ruled the Greco-Scythian state from 432 BC. to 389 h BC The griffin symbolizes the mythical bodyguards of gold deposits in the mountains of Scythia.

History of the coin

The Soviet authorities took the coin from Crimea to the State Hermitage Museum. It was in his collection until the early 1930s, when the museum sold off many of its exhibits to raise money for the Soviet government.

At the same time, for example, the Hermitage sold such paintings as “Madonna Alba” by Raphael (1511) and “Annunciation” by Jan van Eyck (1434−36), which later became the basis of the collection of the National Gallery of Art in Washington.

After the auction, the Crimean coin set a new record as the most expensive antique coin. At the same time, the most expensive coin of all time is 20 dollars made of gold, minted in 1933. In 2021, it was sold at a Sotheby’s auction for $18.9 million.

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Source: Ministry of Finance

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