Once upon a time, there lived a guy named Skostokos. He may have been a king, or a general, or just a guy who knows some guys, if you know what I mean. Skostokos lived a long time ago - about 2300 years. One day, Skostokos decided he wanted to mint some coins, so he saved up some money from pillaging and plundering, hired a die maker, and created these bronze coins. He also did some silver ones too, except those were super expensive to produce, so he just took some from another guy named Lysimachos and stamped his name on them. The coins were delivered to the village, and everyone who valued living agreed that they were most spectacular and remarked how handsome Skostokos looked. Of those who used these bronzes was a certain Ralph. Now Ralph was a very busy guy. Proprietor of the local Bows R'Us, he also ran a mail-order bespoke pottery business and moderated three ThraceBook groups. While rushing to deal with a client who'd somehow shot his foot, Ralph tripped over a small pot and dropped one of Skostokos' coins into a crack. This ends Ralph's contribution to history. Centuries later, another guy was digging where Ralph's house used to be and found this coin. He gave it to an archeologist, who couldn't recall ever hearing about Skostokos before. To this day, we know nothing about Skostokos. We don't know his favorite color, preferred Netflix shows, or even exactly where and when he lived. Every single detail we know are from his coins. We know he lived around Thrace, was called Skostokos, and looked roughly like this portrait. Kings of Thrace, Skostokos Æ 16mm 2.81g 12h Kabyle, circa 277-260 BCE Bust of Skostokos to right, wearing torque / Horseman charging right with flying mantle; ΣΚΟ[ΣΤΟΚΟΣ] below. SNG Stancomb 300; Peter 1997, p. 219; Draganov, Cabyle, 1997, Type 1, 27-45; HGC 3.2, 1475 WildWinds plate coin Ex Numismatics Lanz Munich 2007 Ex Heidelberger Münzhandlung Herbert Grün e.K. 2014 Ex Roma 2021 Please post your coins of individuals only known through coins!
First:I LOVE how you tell a story (completely the way it happened, with a splash of wit and winks n nods). B- Thracian coins are massively unappreciated due to Thrace being Macedons MORE WILD brother And lastly, my addition. There is nothing (he said, being overly dramatic) worse than, "unknown mint" Who? Where? What?!?! Though, wherever this coin was minted it has one of my very favorite portraits of Herakles
So now I'm confused. If we know nothing about Skostokos except his coins, why is your coin attributed to Skostokos II?
Is it just me or does that bust look like David Vagi? Love the coin, love the story, and dagnabbit now I have to have one!
As I understand, there's been some debate one whether there was one Skostokos or two. The general consensus today is there was just one - and the bronze and silver coins were minted by the same individual. In this case, I copied the attribution from Roma. WildWinds (which uses this exact coin for the type) attributes it to Skostokos. WildWinds also provides an earlier date of 277-260 BCE, which I should probably switch my attribution to since it makes more sense. What little we know about Skostokos is he had something to do with Lysimachos, and the latter died in 281 BCE.
