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In the descriptions, AR refers to silver, AE to copper or bronze and AV to gold. 

Cheaper Ancients available - listed further down this list...

Listed in order of age.

ther than the literary tradition ascribing the origin of coinage to the kings of Lydia, there is little evidence for a more exact chronology of early Greek coinage. The tradition, buttressed by limited archaeological studies, does confirm Asia Minor as the place of origin, most likely Lydia or Ionia, and a date somewhere around 650-625 BC. The alloy used, a mixture of gold and silver known to the Greeks as elektron, was based on the natural ore found in nugget form in many river-beds in the region. The earliest coins were of a globular shape and without design in imitation of this natural form; later, simple striated and punched patterns of squares, rectangles, and swastikas were included. The earliest true types may have developed from the use of personal seals, the most widely known being the stater of Ephesos with a stag bearing the inscription “I am a seal of Phanes”.  The intrinsic value of the early electrum, even down to the 1/96 stater, was too high for use in everyday commerce, and early coinage must have been used only for the transfer of large sums of money, such as mercantile transactions, payment of government expenses (mercenaries, tribute and such), and donatives, either for services rendered to individuals or the state, or to religious foundations. The Artemision deposits, hoards of early electrum found at the site of the temple of Artemis at Ephesos, are examples of the latter.

This coin is normally known as an issue of the Lydian king Croesus. Throughout the ancient world he was known for his legendary wealth, and it is therefore not surprising to find these most ancient of silver coins associated with this king. The lion is the paramount symbol of royalty and as such was appropriate for his Lydian kingdom. According to Herodotus, the Lydians were the first to strike gold and silver coins, but the numismatic evidence is not fully compatible with this statement. Carradice suggests that this coin is unlikely to have been minted in the lifetime of King Croesus and is of the type he calls late Croeseid (c. 510-500). However Sear assigns them to Croesus c. 560-546 B.C. The issue represents the introduction of the world's first bimetallic coinage, gold and silver pieces based on a stater of pure metal weighing about 10.8 grams. This was the initial phase of relatively short duration as shortly after the gold was reduced in weight to about 8 grams for a stater and the silver siglos of just over 5 grams replaced the silver stater. This is an historic and important silver coin from the earliest period of coinage. From the style of this example Carradice assigns the issue to late in the 6th century B.C.

Metapontion, originally named Sybaris, was an Achaian colony of very early foundation, though the precise details of its origin are shrouded in uncertainty. Following the destruction of its first foundation by the Samnites, it was refounded, as Metapontion, early in the 7th century BC by settlers under the leadership of Leukippos, who was thereafter revered as the city founder. The great prosperity of the city — attested by the extent of its archaic silver coinage commencing in the mid 6th century BC — was based on agriculture. Situated on the Gulf of Tarentum, Metapontion occupied a plain of extraordinary fertility watered by the rivers Bradanos and Kasuentos. Its standard coin type is an ear of barley, a tribute to the source of Metapontine wealth, and Demeter, the goddess of grain who is the city’s most revered diety. One of the city's most notable claims was that it was the burial-place of Pythagoras who had retired there and perished in a sedition.

According to tradition the Spartan colony of Taras (modern Taranto), known as Tarentum by the Romans, was founded in 706 BC under the leadership of Phalanthos. The city derives its name from Taras, the son of Poseidon and a local nymph, Satyra. It adopted a democratic form of government circa 475 BC, and thereafter became the leading Greek city in southern Italy. Its success led to continual difficulties with its neighbor cities, and on four occasions Tarentum required expeditions from Greece to help overcome its aggressors. The last of these expeditions was led by the famed Epeirote, Pyrrhos. Following his withdrawal from the city, Tarentum was occupied by the Romans. Tarentum was among the early cities of Magna Graecia to strike coinage, employing the incuse type that was the hallmark of the first Italian coinages. Taras’ prosperity is exemplified by its vast coinage known today which was continuous from 510 BC until the end of the Second Punic War. The primary type recurring throughout the coinage is a figure astride a dolphin, which depicts either Taras or Phalanthos, who was said to have been saved from drowning by a dolphin.
 

As with many cities in Magna Graecia, Kroton was established by colonists from mainland Greece. Myskellos, obeying a directive of the oracle of Delphi, led a group of Achaean settlers to the site and founded the city around 710 BC. This divine sanction is represented by the tripod of the oracle, which became the civic badge of Kroton and is featured on its coinage. Kroton was among the first cities to produce coinage in Italy, its earliest being of the incuse type struck on the Achaian standard. As evidenced by its bountiful coinage, Kroton was one of the most important and wealthy cities of southern Italy. Although its fortunes rose and fell over the centuries, it maintained its production of a wide array of denominations and metals until the Roman period.

During the final decades of the 5th century the art of the die-engraver in Sicily had evolved to such a level that the individual artists began signing their work on the dies. This brought them great celebrity and doubtless commensurate income and the phenomenon was by no means confined to Syracuse itself. Never before, and probably never since, have die-engravers achieved such a high level of fame and the quality and inspiration of their work briefly raised coinage truly to the level of fine art. Unfortunately, these exciting developments were cut short by the catastrophic political events of the closing decade of the 5th century, when the Carthaginian invasion and the reestablishment of tyranny at Syracuse destroyed forever the environment in which this remarkable, but fragile, artistic movement had occurred. Eumenos' work was especially noted for the introduction of high action in the horses drawing the racing chariot, a change which was to be carried much further by other masters of this brief but brilliant period of numismatic art. Together with the engraver Sosion, Eumenos was in the vanguard of the artistic movement which transformed the Syracusan coinage in the late 5th century.

Ex B.R. Noble Collection, Glendining & Co, London, Auction Sale December 11-12, 1975 (lot37). Illustrated as cover coin and in plates. Exhibited at joint exhibition by Spink & Son and Copperfield Galleries, Mosman as "An Exhibition of Ancient Numismatic Art 550 B.C. - 600 A.D. in November 1976 as item 17.

The Seleukid Empire was one of the main successor states to the Macedonian empire forged by Alexander III 'the Great'. Following Alexander's death, his greatest generals, the Diadochs, divided the empire among themselves, but the settlement was not enduring and nearly constant warfare resulted from their ambitions to widen their respective areas of control. Seleukos I, despite being passed over in the initial settlement in 323 BC, received the satrapy of Babylon in the second settlement in 320 BC. By the time of his death in 281 BC, Seleukos had expanded his realm to encompass most of Alexander's eastern possessions from Asia Minor to Baktria.

Alexander the Great (356-323 BC), king of Macedonia, conqueror of the Persian Empire, and one of the greatest military geniuses of all times. Alexander was born in Pella, the ancient capital of Macedonia, was the son of Philip II, king of Macedonia, and of Olympias, a princess of Epirus.  In the summer of 336 BC Philip was assassinated, and Alexander ascended to the Macedonian throne. In 335 BC as general of the Greeks in a campaign against the Persians, originally planned by his father, he carried out a successful campaign against the defecting Thracians, penetrating to the Danube River. On his return he crushed in a single week the threatening Illyrians and then hastened to Thebes, which had revolted. He took the city by storm and razed it, sparing only the temples of the gods and the house of the Greek lyric poet Pindar, and selling the surviving inhabitants, about 8000 in number, into slavery. Alexander's promptness in crushing the revolt of Thebes brought the other Greek states into instant and abject submission. Alexander began his war against Persia in the spring of 334 BC by crossing the Hellespont (modern Dardanelles) with an army of 35,000 Macedonian and Greek troops; his chief officers, all Macedonians, included Antigonus, Ptolemy, and Seleucus. At the river Granicus, near the ancient city of Troy, he attacked an army of Persians and Greek mercenaries totaling 40,000 men. His forces defeated the enemy and, according to tradition, lost only 110 men; after this battle all the states of Asia Minor submitted to him.  Continuing to advance southward, Alexander encountered the main Persian army, commanded by King Darius III, at Issus, in northeastern Syria. The Battle of Issus, in 333, ended in a great victory for Alexander. Cut off from his base, Darius fled northward, abandoning his mother, wife, and children to Alexander, who treated them with the respect due to royalty. Tyre, a strongly fortified seaport, offered obstinate resistance, but Alexander took it by storm in 332 after a siege of seven months. Alexander captured Gaza next and then passed on into Egypt, where he was greeted as a deliverer. By these successes he secured control of the entire eastern Mediterranean coastline. Later in 332 he founded, at the mouth of the Nile River, the city of Alexandria, which later became the literary, scientific, and commercial center of the Greek world.  In order to complete his conquest of the remnants of the Persian Empire, which had once included part of western India, Alexander crossed the Indus River in 326 BC, and invaded the Punjab as far as the river Hyphasis (modern Beâs); at this point the Macedonians rebelled and refused to go farther. He then constructed a fleet and passed down the Indus, reaching its mouth in September 325 BC. The fleet then sailed to the Persian Gulf. With his army, he returned overland across the desert to Media. Shortages of food and water caused severe losses and hardship among his troops. Alexander spent about a year organizing his dominions and completing a survey of the Persian Gulf in preparation for further conquests. He arrived in Babylon in the spring of 323 BC. In June he contracted a fever and died. He left his empire, in his own words, “to the strongest”; this ambiguous testament resulted in dire conflicts for half a century.

Another, quite similar - $395

$395

Lysimachos was a Macedonian of great physical strength and fortitude who rose to prominence as a bodyguard for Alexander the Great. He became governor of Thrace and parts of northwest Asia Minor bordering the Black Sea after Alexander’s death, and like the other Diadochi assumed the royal title in 306/5 BC. At the beginning of his reign, Lysimachos continued to use Alexander’s coinage types, later modifying them by replacing Alexander’s name with his own. In 297 BC, Lysimachos introduced his own coinage, and chose to honor his benefactor, Alexander, by using the latter’s portrait as the obverse type. Athena, Lysimachos’ patron god, was chosen as his new reverse type. This coinage was struck at a variety of mints in Asia Minor and, later, Macedon and Thrace. The currency gained wide popularity, and continued to be minted as civic issues by a number of the cities for over a century after Lysimachos’ death.

In his 1988 article on Rhodian imitations, R. Ashton has argued persuasively that this coinage was struck by Perseus to pay Cretan mercenaries serving in his army (see “A Series of Pseudo-Rhodian Drachms from Mainland Greece,” NC 1988, pp. 29-30). The Rhodian coinage circulated on Crete, where it was a familiar and trusted currency for the Cretans, and it is likely that they would have required payment in that form (see also Ashton, SM 146 (May 1987), p. 34.)

The shekel of Tyre is renowned as the most likely candidate for the coin used to pay Judas Iscariot for betraying Jesus. The reason why it is generally accepted as such is that it was used by the merchant Phoenicians in their business transactions, and was thus a well-recognized and quite ubiquitous coin.

Matthew 26:14-16

Then one of the twleve, who was called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests, and said to them, 'What will ye give me if I deliver him to you?' And they paid him thirty pieces of silver. And from that moment he sought an opportunity to betray him.

These shekels were issued from 126 BCE (Before Common Era) to the time of the First Jewish War in 69-70 CE (Common Era) on a very consistent, yearly basis. In a world that was quickly falling to Roman invaders, this is an amazing fact. The reasons are simple: The Jewish people had to pay an annual tax to the Jerusalem Temple that was only payable in the money of Tyre. The shekels from Tyre were widely available in the region and were well known for their good silver content and accurate weight.
When Jewish pilgrims came to the Jerusalem Temple from other parts of the Greek and Roman world, they found money changers set up in the temple court competitively advertising exchange rates for the locally accepted Shekels. The method of advertising was a loud voice. It was this loud commercial activity that Jesus found offensive, when he threw over the tables of the merchants and expelled them from the Temple.

Matthew 21:10-13

And when he entered Jerusalem, all the city was stirred, saying: 'Who is this?' And the crowds said, 'This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth of Galilee.' And Jesus entered the temple of God and drove out all who sold and bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. He said to them 'It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer'; but you make it a den of robbers.'

As their name implies, Gallic War staters were issued to fund the fight against Julius Caesar in Gaul. Two explanations for the blank obverse have been suggested: firstly, to signify that the coins were minted by a coalition of tribes – ‘headless’ in other words – and, secondly, to speed up the production process, because the coins were often made in a hurry. The latter rationale seems to be more plausible.

Phraatakes was the son of the slave girl Musa, who was given to the Parthian king Phraates by the Romans in 20 BC. Musa eventually became Phraates’ queen and manipulated her son into an unchallenged position to succeed the king after murdering Phraates in 2 BC. In a seeming attempt to legitimize his rule and secure her influence, Phraatakes and Musa were married in 2 AD, and began issuing a coinage containing both of their portraits.  This union was not unprecedented in certain eastern cultures, but did little to secure their position among the Parthian nobility, as they were, after all, of Italian stock. Within two years the Nobility successfully overthrew them both and placed Orodes III upon the throne.

The name Kushan derives from the Chinese term Guishuang, used to describe one branch of the Yuezhi, a loose confederation of Indo-European people who had been living in the Xinjiang Province of modern China. Driven west by Xiongnu between 176 and 160 BC, the five groups of the Yuezhi – the Xiumi, Guishuang (Kushans), Shuangmi, Xidun, and Dumi – reached the Hellenic kingdom of Baktria by 135 BC. They expelled the ruling Greek dynasties there, forcing these kings further south to settle along the Indus River. In the following century, the Guishuang forced the other tribes of the Yuezhi into a tight confederation. Now, as the Guishuang was the predominant power, the entire group became known by that name. This appellation was Westernized as Kushan, though the Chinese still referred to them as Yuezhi.

Like the Hellenistic Greeks and Romans, the Kushans were a multi-cultural society, incorporating much of the cultures they ruled into their own. Like their Baktrian predeccesors, early Kushan coins used Greek legends on the obverse, along with a translation in the local Karosthi script on the reverse. Beginning with Kanishka I, however, the Kushan language, written in an adaptation of the Greek alphabet with some local alterations, was used almost exclusively. From the time of Vima Taktu (Soter Megas), the Kushans also began to adopt Indian cultural elements. Embracing a wide variety of local Indian and Central Asian deities, they assimilated them with Greco-Roman types already prevalent in the region. Overall, the Kushan pantheon represented a religious and artistic melding of western and eastern elements.

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a) Cast AE 'leaf' or 'arrowhead money' (length 33 to 49 mm; weight ~3.4 to 5.00 g); willow or laurel leaf or arrowhead shape, well designed but some roughness, flues from casting visible. SNG BM Black Sea 218; SNG Stancomb 24, 26-27, 128.

b) Cast AE 'arrowhead money' (length 33 to 44 mm; weight ~5.4 to 11.6 g). Two or three-leaves shaped with blunt point and a hooked barb, cast together with the body; some with sockets filled with lead.

c) Cast AE ‘short arrowheads’ (length 25-33 mm; weight ~2.2 to 2.3 g), trefoil feather-shaped with short blunt point, no insert visible. A few pierced in the middle of body. SNG Stancomb 129.

d) Cast AE ‘true long arrowheads,’ of 'Scythian' type (length 30-39 mm, weight ~1.6 to 2.8 g), light, prolonged triangular shape with sharp blades, with an extant insert. May be marked with ‘X’. Fine casting, then carefully filed. Cf. M. Tameanko, 'The Coinage of Ataias, King of Scythians', The Picus 1996, fig. 5.

The Milesian colonies of Olbia, Borysthenes, Istros, Odessos, and Apollonia, founded on the western Black sea coast in the 7th century BC, were once the central points of exchange and trade between the Greeks and local Scythian and Thracian populations. With the invention of coinage as a form of exchange of goods, a few types of pre-monetary items were introduced: the ubiquitous ‘dolphins’ and the scarcer ‘arrowheads’ and ‘wheel-coins’, all cast in copper. All were originally thought to have been from Olbia, but more recent hoard evidence indicates the latter were produced primarily at Istros and Apollonia. These pieces remained in circulation in the west Pontic area for about two centuries, until being finally replaced by struck coinage. Recent publications of finds from South Russia, Ukraine, Bulgaria, and Romania limited the circulation area of these proto-monies to the narrow coastal strip along the western/north-western shores of the Black sea. Some scholars suggested the ‘arrowheads’ were produced there since Apollo, with his bow and arrows, was the main deity who supervised the colonies of Miletus. As a god of archery, Apollo was well known with epithets as Aphetoros (“god of the bow”) and Argurotoxos (“with the silver bow”). These proto-money items are known in French as ‘monnaies–points de flèche’ or ‘flèche-monnaies’, but in English they are best known as 'arrowhead money'.

type a

$65

type b

$65

type c

$65

type d

Around 610 BC, Ionian Greeks from Miletos established an important outpost on the western Black Sea coast. Originally called Antheia, and located on a natural peninsula and three nearby islands, the city quickly became a prosperous trading post by exporting copper, honey, grain, and timber, while importing wine, salt, textiles, and pottery for resale to the inland Thracians. The city’s key trading partners at the time included fellow-commercial centers Miletos, Athens, Lesbos, Chios, and Rhodes. Prosperity soon enabled Antheia to expand and develop as an important cultural metropolis. An important temple to Apollo was constructed within the city in the late 5th century BC. For 500 talents, it commissioned the Greek sculptor Kalamis (of Boeotia) to cast a 13 ton, 10 meter high, bronze statue of Apollo for the new temple (Strabo VII.6.1). So popular was this temple of Apollo, that the city was now renamed Apollonia in its honor. In 72 BC, during his war against the Thracian Bessi, the proconsul of Macedon, Marcus Terentius Varro Lucullus (cos. 73 BC), sacked the city and had the statue transported to Rome, where it was displayed on the Capitol (Pliny, NH XXXIV.18; Strabo VII.6.1).
The 5th and 4th century BC coinage of Apollonia Pontika reflects that city’s origins: commercial wealth and maritime power. The gorgon was a popular apotropaic device, seen as warding off evil; thus a number of ancient Greek cities adopted it as a coin design. The anchor and the crayfish attest to the city’s reliance on maritime commerce for its economy, and the anchor depicted on these coins is actually one of the first anchors of modern design rendered in Greek art. In 342/1 BC, Philip II attacked and conquered Apollonia as well as other towns in Thrace, thereby incorporating these areas into the Macedonian realm. The famous Gorgon/Anchor silver drachms of Apollonia were struck in the period preceding this event, when the city needed to produce coinage to finance its defense against the impending Macedonian invasion. Philip’s conquest brought a close to the city’s autonomous silver coinage, as no issue subsequent to these was ever minted. By the 4th century AD, the town once again underwent a change of name. Now known as Sozopolis (“The City of Salvation”), reflecting the inhabitants’ early acceptance of Christianity, its proximity to the Byzantine capital at Constantinople secured a long period of peace and prosperity. In 1328, Byzantine emperor John VI Kantakouzenos spoke of Sozopolis as a large and populous town (Historiae 1.326). The city was one of the last in the region to fall to Ottoman domination, submitting in April 1453, just before the fall of Constantinople. Today the city, now known as Sozopol, is a thriving seaside resort in Bulgaria.

Better, more complete dolphin money.

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$45 ea

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