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!
Tetradrachm In the name of Lysimachos, Byzantion
| Issuer | Byzantion |
|---|---|
| Year | 90 BC - 80 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 | 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 | Log in to see details |
| Reverse lettering | ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΛΥΣΙΜΑΧΟΥ ΒΥ (Translation: King Lysimachos Byzantion) |
| Edge | Log in to see details |
| Mint | Byzantion |
| Mintage | Log in to see details |
| Additional information |
By the late second century BC, Byzantion had long abandoned any pretense that these coins honored the historical Lysimachos — the Thracian king had been dead for nearly two centuries. The city used his iconic deified portrait type purely as a trade currency, trusted across the Black Sea and Aegean commercial networks precisely because the type was so widely recognized. This was monetary pragmatism, not commemoration.
The Byzantion civic issues of this period are distinguished from earlier royal and other civic imitations by their magistrate monograms and control marks, the specific combination of which ties individual dies to HGC 3.2#1406.