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 |
|---|---|
| Year | 550 BC - 450 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 | Forepart of a ram advancing to the left in high relief, its head turned slightly downward in a naturalistic posture, rendered in the archaic Greek artistic style characteristic of Kyzikene coinage. The musculature and fleece of the animal are finely detailed despite the hammered fabric. To the right of the ram, a tunny fish is depicted in vertical orientation, facing upward — the emblematic device of Kyzikos that appears as a subsidiary symbol on virtually all electrum staters of this mint. The devices are set within a plain, irregularly shaped field on the naturally bean-shaped flan. |
|---|---|
| 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, positioned on the Propontis shore, became one of the ancient world's dominant financial hubs partly because of its reliable access to electrum from regional sources and its aggressive minting program that supplied coinage across Greek trade networks from the Black Sea to the Aegean. The Kyzikenoi stater was so trusted as a trading instrument that it circulated well outside its home region, appearing in hoards from the Crimea to Egypt.
Von Fritze's classification remains the essential reference, though the tuna fish — a civic badge tied to the city's fishing economy — appears consistently as the reverse type across the series as a guarantor of authenticity.