Dolphin

Olbia, the Greek colony at the mouth of the Hypanis river on the Black Sea's northern coast, used cast dolphin-shaped bronzes as a local transactional medium before adopting conventional coin types. These pieces circulated alongside imported coinage from other Greek cities and appear in hoards alongside Istrian and Pontic issues, suggesting a trading network well beyond the immediate colony. Whether they functioned as fractional currency or as a purely local convention remains debated — no ancient literary source explicitly describes them.

Casting variation is substantial across the series; no two are precisely alike in curvature or surface texture.