★ An apparently unique stater from Chersonesos ★

TAURIC CHERSONESOS. Chersonesos. Stater (Gold, 19 mm, 7.78 g, 1 h), CY 84 = 60 AD. XEP Diademed and draped male head (of Chersonas?) to left; before, serpent to left. Rev. Artemis standing facing, holding bow and arrow in her left hand and hurling javelin with her right; in field to left, monogram of ΠAP above ΠΔ (date). Anokhin -. Frolova&Abramzon -. RPC I -. Turovski&Gorbatov pl. 37, 2 ( this coin ). Apparently unique. An attractive and very well centered example. Very light doubling and somewhat weakly struck , otherwise, good very fine.

From a European collection, formed before 2005.

The late civic coinage of Chersonesos is quite unusual in that it consisted of rather crude gold staters, all of which are very rare today and show a male head on the obverse and Artemis on the reverse. Luckily, all known examples carry the year of a local era on the reverse, which allows for precise dating of each issue - in the case of this piece, that is 60 AD.