King Croesus 1/12 Gold Stater “Light Series” NGC XF Lion & Bull

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Kingdom of Lydia
King Croesus 561-546BC
1/12 Gold Stater “Light Series” NGC XF
Lion & Bull

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Croesus of Lydia was one of the most famous kings of antiquity. Although we know few concrete facts about him. Lydia was already the dominant power in Asia Minor before Croesus (often rendered as Kroisos) attained the kingdom’s throne in about 561 BC as the son of Alyattes, who had reigned for the previous half-century. The most important reform attributed to him was the introduction of a bimetallic coinage in gold and silver, first augmenting and then replacing the previous smaller electrum issues.

The 'Croesus ' Gold Stater is one of the most recognizable of all ancient Greek coinage. All of the issues in the bimetallic, gold and silver, series feature the same confronted lion and bull foreparts on the obverse, and two incuse punches (or a single punch in the case of small denominations) on the reverse.

Croesus fractional Gold Staters were the first pure gold coins of the Ancient world. A museum quality piece that deserves to be tucked away in the finest of rare coin collections.