Gemini, LLC
Auction X 13 January 2013
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Mysia. Cyzicus. c. 600-550 BC. EL Stater, 16.30g. Obv: Head of tunny fish left, jaws closed, backbone protruding from truncation at right. Below, tail of tunny fish. Rx: Quadripartite incuse square. Apparently unpublished denomination with this type. Fritze 6, pl. I, 5 (sixth and twelfth), cf. Hurter & Liewald, SNR 85 (2006), p. 10, no. 12. VF.
The tuna was the sole type on the earliest electrum coinage of Cyzicus, but the relationship between type variety and denomination was inconsistent. In some series a whole tuna indicated a stater and just part of the fish indicated a smaller denomination, but our coin is a stater and shows just the head and the tail of a tuna. In any case all staters of this early period are very rare, and ours with this type seems to be unpublished. Later Cyzicus used a much wider variety of types, including many copied from foreign coins.
The tuna was the sole type on the earliest electrum coinage of Cyzicus, but the relationship between type variety and denomination was inconsistent. In some series a whole tuna indicated a stater and just part of the fish indicated a smaller denomination, but our coin is a stater and shows just the head and the tail of a tuna. In any case all staters of this early period are very rare, and ours with this type seems to be unpublished. Later Cyzicus used a much wider variety of types, including many copied from foreign coins.