Attica Athens Addition

Congrats on your first owl tet! Nice example and good weight too--the intermediate style often run lower weight.

This is the attribution of the dealer I bought it from. I'm uncertain as to how to attribute these Tets. I know there are the archaic and the intermediary. But other than the almond shaped eye, I do not know what distinguishes one from the other. I will defer to you and others on this forum. If the attribution is in correct, please help a fellow out and give me the correct attribution. Thanks for the comments. It took everything I had to make myself buy this coin. Now I need to get back to my first love - Roman coins.

now that is pretty darn cool...good for you jw!

I would call the OP coin a late Intermediate closer to 300 BC than any other round number. The 449 date probably comes from that separating the Archaic and Early Classical (3 prong tail) coins from the common Classical ones. The OP is a pretty nice example IMHO unless you discount it for wear. A lot of them have centering problems. I once had a friend (long gone now) who specialized in owls but would not consider buying a coin where the nose was even touched by the edge of the flan. He had over a hundred variations all selected for nice faces and good strikes.
http://athenianowlcoins.reidgold.com/
If you care enough to read a bit, this site will tell you what you want to know. I don't agree with everything Reid says but probably 99% when it comes to owls. You guys have driven the price of them to a point that I am sure every one I buy will be the last. There are a million of them available to collectors and absolutely no reason to pay big money for poor coins but demand from people who have no ancients remains high and the best styles in high grade are certainly over $1000 now. We don't even see that many of the really nice early ones anymore. I wonder who is buying them all?

She needs to get at least 10% to compensate for all the coins she gave me for way less than she thought they were worth. Here is a sad and serious fact folks. Those of you who hang around here and actually read/understand posts and links provided by some of the regulars (Warren, Martin and several others) probably know more about ancient coins than a few of the newer dealers out there who have little time to study while they are travelling from coin show to coin show trying to make a living out of these things. I'm not saying that you are ready to apply for a job at CNG or set yourself up as a third party slabber but you can not assume that someone who is a dealer and offers good services is going to be a fount of information on each and every coin they stock. There are many dealers out there who are 'better than a book' but most of them do sell coins for more than many of us prefer to pay. I'm glad Bing liked my reference and I wish I knew dealers to recommend living everywhere across the country but that is not the case. I wonder if any of our younger members will be getting jobs in the hobby in another decade? It would be nice to know someone younger than I am that I could tell my grandson to contact when he is ready to dispose of my coins.

Very nice coin!