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Lot 4367
Ionia, Miletos. Electrum Stater (14.23g) struck ca. 660 BC. The Striation Type. Milesian standard (17.5mm). Field of striated lines. Reverse: Long slim, shallow rectangular central punch, flanked by two square shallow punches, all with uneven raised surfaces. Joseph Linzalone, Electrum and the Invention of Coinage (2011), 1014 (this coin); BMC 1. Considered the first true coin. Extremely Rare and one of only seven known of this type. About Extremely Fine.
According to Herodotus, the Lydians were the first people to use electrum coinage. And up and to present day, literary tradition has deemed Lydia the birthplace of coinage. Although there is not much evidence to point specifically to Lydia, Asia Minor is most certainly the fount of the first coinage. A mixture of gold and silver known to the Greeks as elektron occurred as a natural ore found in nugget form in its riverbeds. These nuggets were weighed and used as a form of exchange and from them evolved the earliest coinage. It would only be natural then for the earliest coins, which would bear no design, to be globular and nugget-like in shape. The intrinsic value of early electrum was quite high, and these early coins must then have been used for the transfer of large sums, whether mercantile or governmental, or as donatives.
As a guaranty of a fixed value, punches were added to these electrum units. For scholars and numismatists, this is the determinant that ennobles these pieces as the first true coins. (In China, bronze cowrie shells dating back to 900 BC or earlier have been found in burial sites; copies of organic cowrie shells which were used as units of exchange. But these bronze cowries bear no mark of value.)
The process of adding the punches was facilitated by roughing up the surfaces, resulting in coins with rough, irregular or striated surfaces. These coins would be based on the Milesian standard of circa 14 grams which was employed in parts of Ionia and in Lydia. As a phase of the evolution of coinage, this time would be very brief. From Ionia, or Lydia, electrum coinage spread to the coastal cities of Asia Minor, to the Greek islands and then to the mainland.
The Striation Type is the first type of coin to introduce the innovation of an obverse image. According to Linzalone, the simple design was perhaps inspired by ripples on the surface of water, ripples that market the source of precious Electrum.
As the largest denomination of the first successful type coin, the extremely rare staters of the striated series are of singular inportance as the premier example of the first true coin.
Estimated Value $30,000 - 40,000.
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| Realized $57,500 |
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