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Amastris was founded around 300 BC by the Pontic princess of the same name, a niece of Darius III who had been married successively to two Macedonian generals before governing the city as sole ruler. By the late 2nd century BC the city operated under the orbit of the Pontic kingdom, and this issue falls within the period of Mithridates VI's consolidating grip on the southern Black Sea coast — a region he would soon use as the economic and naval backbone of his wars against Rome.

Recueil 52 is a relatively scarce civic type for this mint. Paphlagonian bronzes of this period are underrepresented in major collections.