Obol Crab

Massalia — modern Marseille — was a Phocaean Greek colony founded around 600 BC, and by the mid-fifth century it had developed a distinctly local coinage tradition largely independent of mainland Greek monetary conventions. The crab type on this obol is characteristic of the earliest Massalian silver, a denomination struck in such small weights that dies frequently show misalignment and off-center placement, making well-centered examples genuinely uncommon.

Lelewel-Tochon 510 places this piece within the archaic phase before the series transitioned toward the more standardized drachm types for which Massalia is better known in later centuries.