SICILY. Leontinoi (?). Circa 415-413 BC. Litra or Diobol (Silver, 11 mm, 0.61 g, 9 h), The attribution to Leontionoi is uncertain - see below. Youthful male head to right, wearing a taenia adorned with tendrils (?) and ending with an upright above his forehead. Rev. Barley grain between two annulets. Apparently unpublished and unknown . Seemingly unique. Struck from dies of fine Classical style; attractively toned. Minor traces of corrosion, otherwise, about extremely fine.

From the "Collection sans Pareille" of Ancient Greek Fractions.

On the late owner's ticket this coin is described as being from Leontinoi, dated to 415-413, and the head on the obverse is identified as that of Apollo. But is it? In the first place, the head on the obverse does not look like any of the heads of Apollo found on the coinage of Leontinoi. The curious vertical end to his taenia makes him look a bit like a young river-god; in fact, this head has close parallels to heads of Amenanos on coins from Katane dating to c. 410-405 - as Buceti 53, 61, 63 and 64). In addition, the value mark, ○○, is most unusual for a Sicilian mint (they tend to use pellets: ●● or ●●●, etc.), but is found used in Magna Graecia (Metapontum, Laus, Lokroi, to mention a few). So could this piece actually have been struck by a mint in Lucania or Bruttium? Or could it be from Katane? This is another one of those problem coins, which is perfectly clear but we do not know what it really is! It is placed here solely because of the owner's ticket.