1/2 Stater - Lysimachos Kolchis imitation

The Bastarnae occupied a contested zone between the Carpathians and the Black Sea steppe, and their coin production reflects that position — borrowing the prestige iconography of Lysimachos, whose original staters had circulated as high-value currency across the Pontic region for two centuries after his death. Kolchis imitations of the Lysimachos type form a distinct sub-family, progressively abstracted from the Macedonian prototype through successive copying, and this half-stater weight falls within a local fractional tradition that had no direct precedent in the original Lysimachean series.

Castelin's classification remains the primary reference for this material, though the attribution to the Bastarnae specifically is interpretive — provenanced find spots cluster along the lower Danube frontier.