CARIA. Alinda. 2nd century BC. Drachm (Silver, 18 mm, 4.00 g, 3 h), Attic standard. Head of Herakles to right, wearing lion skin headdress. Rev. AΛINΔEΩN Club above thyrsos (?); below, B or monogram; all within oak wreath. BMC -. HN online -. SNG Copenhagen -. SNG Keckman -. SNG München -. SNG Tübingen -. SNG Turkey -. SNG von Aulock -. Weber -. Winterthur -. Apparently unpublished and unique, a highly interesting issue. Somewhat corroded, otherwise, very fine.

The emergence of this piece now adds a third denomination to the very small output of civic silver coins by the Carian city of Alinda:

a) SNG von Aulock 2402 = HN online 253 and SNG Tübingen 3349 (both struck from the same dies): head of Herakles to right / club within oak wreath. 2.24 and 2.06 g
b) Leu Web Auction 15, 532 (the present coin): head of Herakles to right / club with Thyrsos below within oak wreath. 4.00 g
c) Waddington 2118 = HN online 1523: head of Herakles to right / Herakles standing facing within oak wreath. 6.72 g

Both SNG von Aulock and HN online describe a) as a Rhodian drachm, with c) thus being considered a Rhodian didrachm. However, the emergence of our coin suggests something else, namely the use of a somewhat reduced Attic weight standard, with a) being a hemidrachm, b) a drachm and c) a didrachm (the low weight of the latter is easily explained by the severely chipped edge of the sole surviving example). Such a series of denominations would indicate that the civic silver coinage of the city served as fractions of the predominant 'international' silver coinage of the time, the tetradrachms of the Hellenistic kings, making them more easily convertible into smaller change for use in the local economy