THESSALY, Larissa Kremaste
AE Trichalkon. 7.91g, 21.9mm
MINTED: THESSALY, Larissa Kremaste, 4th century BC
REF: BCD Thessaly II 399 (same obv die); HGC 4, 12 (R1)
OBVERSE: Bare head of Achilles right.
REVERSE: ΛΑΡΙΣΑΙΩΝ, Thetis, veiled, wearing long chiton and holding shield of Achilles with his monogram on it, seated left on hippocamp; below, in front of her feet, dolphin left.
 
Notes:
A charming type, depicting the Greek hero Achilles on the obverse, and on the reverse, his mother, the sea goddess Thetis, riding a hippocamp to deliver to him a shield forged by Hephaistos, the smith god. 
This less common variety has a fine style head of Achilles facing right rather than left, and furthermore, is an extremely rare early issue with the full city ethnic on the reverse, sharing the same obverse die as BCD Thessaly II 399, which was, in the words of BCD, the work of a "gifted artist." That particular example, with its obverse in similarly worn condition, was auctioned in the original BCD sale in 2012, and fetched a whopping hammer price of $11,000 : https://cngcoins.com/Coin.aspx?CoinID=199009 
 
Provenance:
Ex BCD Collection, with his round handwritten tag 
The BCD Collection was possibly the largest and most important private collection of Greek coinage ever assembled.  Over the course of five decades, the collector, known publicly by the initials BCD, acquired over 50,000 coins representing the major cities and regions of ancient Greece.  An accomplished numismatist, BCD studied not just the historical context but also the art and chronology of the coins, with some of the results of these studies eventually finding their way into the notes he provided for the catalogues of the sale of his coins.  Many of these published catalogues are now used as the standard references for the regions they cover.  A provenance to the BCD Collection is one of the most desirable that a Greek coin can possess.
 
Historical Notes:
Thessaly in central Greece was a region of fertile, grassy plains ringed by mountains, with Mount Olympus serving as a backdrop.  Unlike other Greek regions which tended to cultivate primarily olives and grapes, Thessaly was best known for its magnificent horses, cattle, agriculture, and sports such as bull-wrestling.  
 
The walled city of Larissa Kremaste (the epithet meaning "hanging" in Greek) was situated on a hill at the base of Mount Othrys in Thessaly.  According to its mythological tradition, it was the birthplace of the great Greek hero, Achilles, who is depicted on most of its coinage.