Owner Comments:
Ptolemy (the first one) had a wife who liked Pyrrhus of Epirus and married a daughter to him. It is believed by some that Ptolemy was the source of the elephants Pyrrhus brought to Tarentum in Italy and deployed against the Romans in his three famous battles there. The eagle grasping a thunderbolt on the reverse of this coin appears also on contemporaneous gold coins struck in Tarentum under Pyrrhus. Maybe Ptolemy gave Pyrrhus gold to go with the elephants.
Sixty years later, a new Ptolemy IV "Philopator" is believed by some to have been the source of gold for Rome's first short-lived issuance of gold coinage in or just after 212 BC. The sack of Syracuse could also account for the gold, but, the same eagle grasping a thunderbolt appears on the reverse of those Roman coins.
I like to believe this eagle grasping the thunderbolt signifies a connection to Ptolemaic Egypt, the biggest power of the time in that region. Ptolemaic Egypt made the biggest warships, the biggest gold coins, and the biggest library. In the early 200's BC Ptolemy I supported the invading enemy of Rome, and by the late 200's BC Ptolemy IV may have supported Rome against an invading enemy. The moral of the story? If I was an Ptolemaic Egyptian taxpayer I'd really wish these guys would stop blowing our dough on foreign wars. In the end, Ptolemaic Egypt couldn't keep up the gold coinage, got weak, and conquered.
Alexandria, from 284 BC. Diademed head of Ptolemy I right, aegis tied around neck / ΠTOΛEMAIOY-BAΣIΛEΩΣ, eagle standing left on thunderbolt, wings spread; ΠY monogram to left. CPE 144. Svoronos 223.
There are 20 of these graded by NGC, most have some kind of issues like scratches and graffiti, but most are in less worn condition.