Ancient Greece Ptolemaic Kingdom Tetradrachm with Eagle 305BC to 30BC

With a curly haired man on one side and a standing eagle on the other, there is a good chance that requester Chris has a silver tetradrachm from the ancient Ptolemaic Kingdom. There are certainly other possibilities, and these patterns were used on other denomination coinage, but silver tetradrachms are the most popular and highly sought collectible. Silver tetradrachms weigh about 13.5 grams (plus/minus 1 gram) and have a diameter of about 26.5 mm (plus/minus 2 mm).

The Ptolemaic Kingdom was a Hellenistic kingdom based in Egypt ruled by the Ptolemaic dynasty which started with Ptolemy I after the death of Alexander the Great (323BC) and ended with Roman conquest in 30BC. Generally coins of the early Ptolemys are worth somewhat more than coins of later Ptolemys.

The inscriptions are important. Transliterating from Greek, they read PTOLEMAIOY BASILEUS, or KING PTOLEMY.

On this page we can give only very general guidance about the value of these interesting coins. If you have a nice looking specimen, seek out a knowledgeable numismatist or professional coin dealer for an in-person appraisal. If you have uploadable images, you are welcomed to try our sister web site eFollis.com [Press Here].

worn, off-centered: $100 US dollars approximate catalog value
average circulated: $300
well preserved, perfectly centered: $1000

The values above, clearly, are very approximate guidelines. For a little more insight into value, consider the coin pictures below, labelled Coin A and Coin B.

Coin A is more worn than Coin B. Further, Coin A is not strictly centered, making the inscriptions vanish or become difficult to read. Coin B is perfectly centered with all details visible. Coin A is from Ptolemy X and Coin B is from Ptolemy V (or VI), making Coin A more recent than Coin B.

These factors make Coin A worth less and Coin B worth more. Approximately:

Coin A: worth about $150 US dollars
Coin B: worth about $1000
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