Sale: CNG 66, Lot: 647. Estimate $10000.  Closing Date: Wednesday, 19 May 2004.  Sold For $9200. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

ASIA MINOR. Uncertain mint. Circa 6th century BC. A partial hoard of electrum "proto-money". The hoard consists of three irregular cast lumps of electrum, 19.22, 10.51 and 6.91 grams // Twenty-four cut fragments of electrum lumps, ranging in weight from 17.47 to 2.35 gm. In original, as found condition. Twenty-seven (27) pieces total in lot. ($10,000)

The following third stater and these ingots and fragments are part of a group of thirty-two electrum ingots and two early coins that has recently come to light. Four larger ingots and two coins (including the third stater, below) were sold in Rauch 71 (28 April 2003), lots 155-160. One additional ingot from the group was sold in CNG 64 (24 September 2003), lot 356. The size and shape of these ingots are completely irregular, the result of having been cast free-hand into a sand form. A metallurgical analysis done at Oxford University proves the ingots to have a variable gold fineness which ranges from 65% down to 29%. A similar ingot of fine gold was published in R. Walburg, "Lydisch oder Persisisch? Ein Goldobjekt aus der Frühzeit der Münzpragung," SNR 70 (1991). As an additional comparanda, P. Themelis published a gold hoard found at Eretria, dated to the eighth century BC. See John H. Kroll, "Observations on Monetary Instruments in Pre-Coinage Greece," Hacksilber to Coinage (2001), pg. 79, for an illustration. An important piece of evidence for the use of electrum in early Greece.