weight 4,66gr. ; electrum Ø 13x11mm.

obv. Head of lion right, with globule on forehead
rev. Square punch roughly divided in two parts

The electrum 1/3 stater is one of the very earliest coins. It was made from electrum, a natural occurring alloy of gold and silver. The Lydians were the first to have fixed retail shops, probably contributing to the development of the coins. The coin above looks like a tiny nugget with a design on one side only. This ancient stater was hand struck. A die with a design, in this case a lion′s head, for the front of the coin was placed on an anvil. A blank piece of metal was placed on top of the die, and a punch hammered onto the reverse. The result was a coin with an image on one side and a punch mark on the other. Even though it looks crude, the weight was strictly monitored.

BMC 7 ; SNG.von Aulock 2868-2869 ; SNG.Copenhagen 449 ; 
Weidauer 86-87 ; SNG.Kayhan 1013 ; Rosen Collection 655 ; 
Mitchiner ATAEC 14-18 ; Sear 3998 R
Rare historical coin.
vf

weight 3,31gr. ; electrum Ø 12x11mm.

obv. Head of lion right, with globule on forehead
rev. Square punch roughly divided in two parts

The 1/3 stater is one of the very earliest coins. It was made from electrum, a natural occurring alloy of gold and silver. The Lydians were the first to have fixed retail shops, probably contributing to the development of the coins. The coin above looks like a tiny nugget with a design on one side only. This ancient stater was hand struck. A die with a design, in this case a lion′s head, for the front of the coin was placed on an anvil. A blank piece of metal was placed on top of the die, and a punch hammered onto the reverse. The result was a coin with an image on one side and a punch mark on the other. Even though it looks crude, the weight was strictly monitored.

This specimen has eight small bankers / control marks on the edge, s.a. star with 5 pellets (Miletos ?), stylized lion′s head(?). The weight of a hekte normally is about 4,75gr. Although this specimen has the size and thinckness of a trite, the weight is far too low. Most likely it concern here a subaeratum, an electrum coin whose core is made of silver or (most likely) bronze. The presence of so many control marks is striking. The coin was not considered "inferior" in the past. Even today, the surfaces are still solid and tight. Highly interesting and rare historical coin.

BMC 7 ; SNG.von Aulock 2868-2869 ; SNG.Copenhagen 449 ;
Weidauer 86-87 ; SNG.Kayhan 1013 ; Rosen Collection 655 ;
Mitchiner ATAEC 14-18 ; Sear 3998 R
vf

weight 10,61gr. ; silver 20x15mm.

obv. Foreparts of lion right and bull left, face-to-face
rev. Two incuse squares, side by side

By the time Kroisos succeeded his father Alyattes as king of Lydia in 561 BC, electrum coinage already had been used in Asia Minor for decades. Herodotus  (1.94.1) states that the Lydians were the first to produce coins of gold and silver, an innovation now confidently attributed to Kroisos, seemingly in about 550 BC. Though the motivation for this advancement is nowhere recorded, it is generally assumed that it was meant to make it easier to determine the intrinsic value of the coins. All new Kroisos coins portrayed on their obverse the confronted foreparts of a lion and a bull, a design steeped in the royal and cosmic imagery of the Near East. The reverse was a simple, two part punch on which one segment was larger than the other. This corresponded to the dimensions of the planchets and the obverse die, on which the lion was noticeably larger than the bull. In both gold and silver the principal denomination was a stater, that originally weighted about 10,70 grams. The silver stater remained at that weight, but the gold soon was reduced to about 8 grams, requiring that a distinction is made between the heavy and light gold stater of Kroisos. The main denominations were supplemented with fractional denominations. following the established pattern of many older electrum coinages. 

Kroisos had been issuing his new coins for only about four years when, in 546, his powerful and prosperous kingdom was sacked by the Achaemenid King Cyrus. Instead of executing Kroisos,  Cyrus embraced him as an advisor, as he admired Kroisos despite his defeat. Cyrus also recognized the value of Kroisos coinage to the regional economy, and he continued to strike coins of the same design, purity and weight. The differences between the last issues of Kroisos and the first of Cyrus are not perfectly or universally understood, as the only indications are often-subtle aspects of style and fabric. By about 500 BC, if not earlier, the next Persian king, Darius I (522-486 BC), abandoned the lion-and-bull type of Kroisos and transformed the Lydian coinage into one that was distinctively Persian. The obverse now showed an archer who usually is described as the Great King, but who may be a hero, and the reverse was struck with a single, oblong punch. Though Darius kept the light-weight stater as his main gold denomination, he chose the silver half-stater (circa 5.35 grams). valued at 1/20th of the gold piece, as his principal silver coin. the new gold pice came to be known as a daric after King Darius, and the silver piece a siglos, the Greek form of the Semitic shekel.

Perfectly centered specimen with good details.
Exceptionnal quality for this rare historical issue.
Very attractive.

cf. Numismatica Genevensis, Auction 7, no.235 (about xf CHF 28.000 + 17,5%)

BMC 37 ; SNG.Copenhagen 455 ; SNG.von Aulock 2874 ; 
SNG.Kayhan 1018 ; Berk 19 ; Kurth S1 ; Carradice pl.X, 2 ; 
Babelon, Traité Traité I 407-8    R
vf+

weight 0,39gr. ; silver Ø 6mm.

obv. Foreparts of lion right and bull left, face-to-face
rev. Incuse punch

BMC- ; Rosen Collection- ; SNG.Copenhagen- ; Mitchiner ATAEC 60 ;
SNG.von Aulock- ; Slg.Klein 562 ; Carradice 94,Pl.10,5 ; SNG.Kayhan 1022 RR
attractive for the type
vf