THRACE, Abdera. Circa 520/15-500 BC. AR Tetradrachm (23mm, 14.10 g). Griffin standing left, raising right forepaw / Quadripartite incuse square. May, Abdera 1 (A1/P1); CN Online Type 4385; HGC 3, 1127; BMC Ionia 79A (same dies; erroneously attributed to Phokaia); Pozzi 2499 (same dies); Weber 2366 (same dies). Lightly toned, traces of find patina, a little die wear and porosity, minor marks and scratches. VF. From the rare first issue of Abdera. Abdera has its mythological foundation in the Labors of Herakles, who founded the city in honor of his companion Abderos after the latter was killed by the mares of Diomedes. Historically, the first recorded settlement was a failed colonization effort by Klazomenaians under the leadership of Timesias in 656 BC, but neither of these events have left any concrete traces in the later history. It was in 541 BC that citizens of Teos, fleeing the Persian conquest of Ionia, established a long-lasting civic entity. The unchanging numismatic symbol of Abdera, the griffin, was adopted from the coinage of the lost home city, Teos, but turned to face left instead of right as at Teos. Abderas production of massive silver oktadrachms begins within a decade of the founding of the city, and reflects the reason for the success of this foundation as opposed to the earlier failure; at the beginning of the 6th century BC the prolific silver mines of Thrace started coming online, and trading cities such as Abdera and Thasos were well positioned to claim their portion of the wealth. While producing large quantities of silver coins, the city also introduced one of the earliest series of signed coinage by annual magistrates. While the obverse type was invariably a griffin, the reverses, once they evolved beyond the simple quadripartite square in the late 5th century, seem to have been left to the whim of the magistrates, who responded with a delightful repertoire of varied types, mythological and naturalistic, a number featuring visual puns on the magistrates names. This was the period of Abderas greatest achievements, of well known citizens such as Demokritos, the laughing philosopher, and Protagoras, the most celebrated of the sophists. The failed revolt against Athens in 411 BC proved only a slight hiatus in the citys prosperity. However, the final end would come within a generation, as the production of the Thracian silver mines began to slow (or was diverted to the growing power of Macedon) and the Thracian tribes became increasingly restive. In 375 BC, the Abderan army was destroyed by the Triballoi, and only closer confederacy with Athens preserved the city. Its annual coinage issues ceased, and after this period little precious metal coinage was struck in Abdera. The final winners of all Triton XXIX lots will be determined at the live public sale that will be held on 13-14 January 2026.Triton XXIX – Session One – Lot 1-301 will be held Tuesday morning, 13 January 2026 beginning at 9:00 AM ET.Winning bids are subject to a 22.5% buyers fee for bids placed on this website and 25% for all others.We recognize that our users may have various Internet Browsers and Operating Systems. We like our visitors to have the best possible experience when using our bidding platform. However, we do recognize that it is impossible to develop applications that work identically, efficiently and effectively on all web browsers. The CNG bidding platform supports the latest stable major version and stable previous version of Chrome and Firefox.
