Hekte

Kyzikos dominated the electrum coinage market of the fifth and fourth centuries BC to a degree no other city matched — its hektes circulated as a de facto international trade currency across the Black Sea, Aegean, and as far as Egypt. The city's electrum supply came from alluvial sources in the region, and the consistently high gold content of Kyzikene issues gave them a reliability that made them acceptable far outside Mysian territory.

The series runs to well over two hundred distinct types, each obverse design apparently unique to a specific issue rather than repeated across years — a production convention that makes precise dating of individual pieces nearly impossible within the century-long span of the series.