Op de hierboven genoemde link zie je bovenaan de website dezelfde munt staan. Van de eigenaar van de website kreeg ik de volgende reactie:
Your coin, indeed, is the same emission that my one shown in the opening note of my web page. It is the Aristen-Psyllou name combination from Apollonia.
On the obverse you can see a torch to left and wreath in the exergue, characteristic for this issue.
Aristen (also, Ariston on other coins) ("excellent") was some kind of subordinate of Psyllos ("tick"), the latter was most probably the eponymous magistrate of the year in Apollonia. This emission was most probably minted in a certain year of the first two decades of the first century BC, a closer chronology cannot be established yet. If you scroll down in the page to the chronology tables, you will find this type at ALc1; that is,
A = Apollonia
L = cow to Left
c = Concave sides of the square on the reverse
1 = first series within above: symbols on the obverse and the alpha has the V-connection between the sides of the letter.
These style details and the comparison of hoard contents and metrology helped me establish a relative chronology, according to this the Ariston-Psyllou emission was the 17th back from the end of the closure of the mint (the date of which is uncertain).
Catalogue references: BMC40, SNG Copenhagen397, SNG Tubingen1315 etc.
There are some corrosion spots on your piece. If the weight is well under 3 g, this may mean a copper core (fourree) - I have not found fourree pieces of this emission yet. If the weight is above (or not significantly lower than) 3 g may mean only some copper leakage from the silver alloy in an aggressive (acidic) soil. Otherwise there are no signs that the piece could be a fake.
The only, tiny difference between your and my piece is in the rays on the reverse. My coin (which is reverse die equivalent with that in the Copenhagen collection) shows some irregularity in the arrangement of the rays: they don't alternate in one half of the square; yours is of the "normal" variety (alternating ray position).
Groeten Michiel
p.s. Even laten wegen dus!!
