Stater

Kyzikos, positioned on the southern shore of the Propontis, controlled access between the Aegean and Black Sea trade routes, and its electrum staters functioned as the dominant commercial currency across that corridor for well over a century. The city's output was prodigious and remarkably consistent — the tuna fish used as a control mark on virtually every Kyzkene stater was not decorative convention but a direct reference to the bluefin tuna runs through the Bosphorus that underpinned much of the city's commercial wealth.

The electrum itself was not naturally occurring electron of fixed composition but a carefully managed alloy, which allowed Kyzikos to maintain weight standards even as raw material sources varied.