Catalog
See full images - free registration
Continue with Google - no registration!
or register with email
Why register? Just to keep bots out of our catalog. Your email stays private - we will never share it or send you anything uninvited. We guarantee you that!
Stater
| Issuer | Kyzikos (Mysia) |
|---|---|
| Year | 400 BC - 380 BC |
| Type | Standard circulation coin |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Weight | Log in to see details |
| Diameter | Log in to see details |
| Thickness | Log in to see details |
| Shape | Log in to see details |
| Technique | Log in to see details |
| Orientation | Log in to see details |
| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
| In circulation to | Log in to see details |
| Reference(s) | Log in to see details |
| Obverse description | Nike, winged goddess of victory, depicted kneeling in three-quarter pose facing left, holding an aplustre (naval trophy ornament) in her outstretched hand. Beneath her figure, a tunny fish swims to the right, serving as the characteristic civic badge of Kyzikos. The figure is rendered in the refined Archaic-to-Early Classical style typical of Kyzikene electrum coinage, with crisp, detailed relief work against a smooth field. |
|---|---|
| Obverse script | Log in to see details |
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Log in to see details |
| Reverse script | Log in to see details |
| Reverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Edge | Plain |
| Mint | Log in to see details |
| Mintage | Log in to see details |
| Additional information |
Kyzikos was the dominant producer of electrum coinage in the Greek world throughout the fifth and fourth centuries, and its staters circulated far beyond Mysia — found in hoards from the Black Sea coast to the Levant. The city's natural access to electrum from the Pactolus river region and its strategic position on the Propontis made it the preferred hard currency for mercenary payments across Anatolia, a function explicitly noted in Xenophon.
Each Kyzikenian stater carried a unique reverse type per issue, making systematic die studies unusually complex. Von Fritze's corpus remains the foundational reference despite being over a century old.