Illyro-Paeonian Region, Damastion. Silver Tetradrachm (13.42 g), ca. 365/0-350/45 BC. Kephi(sophon), magistrate. Laureate head of Apollo right. Reverse: ΔAMAΣT-INΩN, tripod on base; in left field, magistrate's name: KHΦ[I]. May grp. VII, 64e (same dies); McClean 5086. Rare. Struck from a worn obverse die. Toned. Very Fine / Extremely Fine. Estimate Value $500 - 600
llyro-Paeonian Region, Damastion. Silver Tetradrachm (13.42 g), ca. 365/0-350/45 BC. Kephi(sophon), magistrate. Laureate head of Apollo right. Reverse: ΔAMAΣT-INΩN, tripod on base; in left field, KHΦ[I]. May grp. VII, 64e (same dies); McClean 5086. Rare. Struck from a worn obverse die. Virtually as struck. Toned. Extremely Fine. Estimate Value $500 - 750 The Hanbery Collection. Although the precise location of Damastion remains a mystery today, at least its regional boundaries were known to the Greek geographer Strabo who mentions it in his famous Geography, written during the principate of Augustus. He says that there was an alliance of two Illyro-Paeonian tribes, the Dyestae and Enchelii, who had established themselves around the silver mines of Damastion (VII, 7. 326). It was these tribes, then, who were responsible for this coinage, and the only two magistrate's mentioned on the coins of Damastion before it was subsumed by the growing economic dominance of the Macedonian Kingdom of Philip II and Alexander III were Herakleidas and, as here, Kephisophon. They did so only at the very end of the period before the mint ceased to exist.