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 In the name of Lysimachus
| Issuer | Byzantion (Thrace) |
|---|---|
| Year | 240 BC - 230 BC |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| 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 | Variable alignment ↺ |
| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
| In circulation to | Log in to see details |
| Reference(s) | Log in to see details |
| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
| Obverse script | Log in to see details |
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Log in to see details |
| Reverse script | Greek |
| Reverse lettering | ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΛΥΣΙΜΑΧΟΥ |
| Edge | Log in to see details |
| Mint | Log in to see details |
| Mintage | Log in to see details |
| Additional information |
Byzantion struck posthumous gold staters in the name of Lysimachus — the Macedonian general who had died at Corupedium in 281 BC — as a deliberate political currency rather than mere imitation. The city had no dynastic claim to his name; invoking it was a commercial calculation. Lysimachus's types had become the dominant hard currency of the northern Aegean and Pontic trade networks, and Byzantion, controlling the Bosphorus toll, needed coinage that merchants from Thrace to the Black Sea colonies would accept without question.
By the 240s, dozens of mints from Thrace to Asia Minor were producing these posthumous issues. Distinguishing Byzantion's output relies heavily on control marks and die studies such as Marinescu's corpus.