Hekte

Kyzikos dominated electrum coinage production in the Aegean during the fifth century BC to a degree that few mints have ever matched for a single denomination — the city's hektai circulated as a de facto international trade currency from the Black Sea to Egypt. The natural electrum sourced from the region carried a gold content that ancient merchants trusted implicitly, and Kyzikene staters and their fractions commanded a premium in foreign markets over coins of comparable weight in less consistent alloys.

The Von Fritze corpus remains the foundational reference for these issues, though die studies since its publication have substantially expanded the known sequence.