Diobol

Kydonia, the Cretan city whose name likely gave us the quince (*kydonion melon*), struck its own independent coinage from roughly the fifth century BC onward despite being repeatedly contested by neighboring poleis and outside powers. The city changed hands between Aeginetan, Samian, and eventually Ptolemaic influence over the centuries, and its coinage reflects those interruptions — issues are sporadic and small in volume, which accounts for the rarity of even minor denominations like this diobol.

The Lockett and Dewing collections, both now dispersed, were among the most rigorous mid-twentieth-century assemblages of Greek bronzes and silvers; a coin appearing in both reference sequences has had serious scholarly handling.