Does Weight Matter? A Coin of Kroton

Kroton, Silver Third Stater, 530-500BC. Obverse: Delphic tripod with three handles, with legs terminating in lion's paws, with ornaments on and serpents rising from the bowl, QPO to left. Reverse: Incuse, legs terminating in indents symbolising lion's paws.

The Achaean standard which was used by Croton in the late 6th Century BC is based on a stater of 7.9g which was divided into three third-staters (drachms) of 2.63g. Examples of fractional incuse staters from Croton are fairly rare but Seaby, Greek Coins and their Values, lists a 24th stater at 0.35g (SG 259) in addition to the third stater at 2.70g (SG 258). I was therefore surprised to see this coin listed at HistoryCoins.co.uk primarily because of its weight, which was 1.71g. This seemed too far off standard to be through wear or other normal variations. A quick check in the British Museum collection identified that as well as examples of the expected weight there was a similar incuse third-stater of 1.84g (BMC 1913,0114.3). So, is this just an example of extreme variation from standard? For completeness the coin was presented as:

Kroton, Silver Third Stater, 530-500BC. Obverse: Delphic tripod with three handles, with legs terminating in lion's paws, with ornaments on and serpents rising from the bowl, QPO to left. Reverse: Unusual incuse, legs terminating in indents symbolizing lion's paws. 1.71g 20.0mm

There are very few references to fractional staters in coin hoard data and the typical detail is exemplified by CH 1898 (Crotone) which lists Croton 44 st. 3 fr., so you know that fractional coins were found but no further information. It is reasonable to assume that if you were going to form a hoard then fractionals were not worth the effort, however it does reduce the information available to assess normality of weights. C. A. Kraay in his Hoards, Small Change and the Origin of Coinage notes:

Caulonia and Croton have comparatively few fractions. Croton, the more important mint, but as yet not studied in detail, has a very considerable output of staters, which appear to be accompanied by practically no fractions down to about 480; thereafter (the dumpy incuse phase) there appear a few drachmae, a number of triobols, a very few diobols, and very rarely an obol.

This coin is definitely from the earlier incuse phase. So we have established that this coin is not unique but appears to be very rare on based on the academic research and collection data available. But is it a very light third-stater or something else? William E. Daehn in his article Contradictory Theories: Making Sense Of Greek Coin Weight Standards notes that an examination of the minor coinage often shows these coins to be of slightly lighter weight than that called for by the standard. However, just how much lighter would have been accepted?

Using the British Museum collection to provide context, examination of Sybaris third-stater of the first period, which can be isolated in date to pre-510, show a variation in weight between 2.33g and 2.76g and a mean of 2.59g (very close to the standard expected of 2.63g). Revisiting the Crotonite incuse third-staters of this type there is a cluster between 2.41g and 2.72g and a mean of 2.53g. This is in line with what we see at Sybaris, however there are two outliers from this cluster – the coin here at 1.71g and an even lighter one at 1.39g.

It is not possible to make any safe assumption from these very small samples (10 and 9 respectively) , but an observation is that the norm appears to be to conform to standard but there are exceptions. This coin appears to be one. The consequence of this, as noted in the text by William E. Daehn referenced above, is that either smaller denominations were accepted locally at value (sort of pseudo-fait coinage), or that every transaction was weighed.

One final thought. I mentioned that there is a lighter incuse third stater in the British Museum collection. Given, according to Sear, there is evidence that fractions were minted down to 24th staters for Croton would this not be a sixth-stater? A sixth-stater (hemi-drachm) makes sense as a denomination. Unfortunately that leaves the coin illustrated above as the only outlier.