Islands off Attica, Aegina. Silver Stater (12.26 g), ca. 370 BC. Land tortoise with segmented shell. Reverse: Large square incuse with thin skew pattern. Milbank pl. II, 14; SNG Delepierre 1545; HGC 6, 438. Marvelous old cabinet tone with hints of iridescence. NGC grade XF*; Strike: 4/5, Surface: 5/5. Estimated Value $5,000 - UP
The island city of Aegina was one of the earliest cities among the European Greeks to strike silver coins and their extensive maritime trade contacts established the Aeginetic weight standard as the primary standard for coinage in the Peloponnesos and among many cities of the Hellespont and Black Sea, in some cases lasting for centuries. The Aeginetan standard and Aeginetan trade influence were spread primarily through the city's coinage, which regularly featured a sea turtle on the obverse and an incuse design (usually a mill-sail or skew pattern) on the reverse. This animal was emblematic of Aegina's trade by sea. Unfortunately for Aegina, in the fifth century BC, the nearby city of Athens grew in both military and economic power through its leadership of the Delian League. Athenian hostility to Aegina grew increasingly and at last, shortly before the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War (431-404 BC), the Athenians seized the island and expelled many of the Aeginetans. It has been suggested that the use of the land tortoise type in this period (and after the restoration of the Aeginetans in 404 BC), rather than the much more common sea turtle of early Aeginetan coinage, may reflect the loss of the city’s old maritime trading empire.
Ex Goldberg (February 2013), 4352; Goldberg (May 2004), 3228; Coin Galleries (March 1956), 1584.