Lampsakos (BC 394-330) AV Stater - Hermes

ca 394-350 BC. AV Stater (8.39g). Head of Hermes left, wearing large brimmed causia / Forepart of Pegasus right within incuse square. Extremely rare. EF.

For the better part of 4th century BC, Lampsakos issued gold staters with forepart of Pegasus with a variety of obverse types. Few Greek cities were issuing gold at this time, and that Lampsakos was able to start such a project and maintain it for five or six decades, speaks volumes of its wealth and importance. Lampsakos had issued an important group of electrum staters in earlier times. Its gold staters apparently enjoyed wide distribution. Baldwin documented 41 issues of Lampsakene staters in her 1924 study, which is still the standard work. Of these, 8 bore figural types and 32 bore portraits, revealing a preference for the latter category. The chief difficulty Baldwin encountered in ordering the series was the surprising lack of die links between issues; in fact only once was a reverse die carried over from one issue to another, making a global die study impossible. For die studies within each issue, she located 5 examples of Hermes staters that were struck with 5 obverse and 4 reverse dies.