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Message:: [QUOTE="Gallienus, post: 1984548, member: 42034"]Thanks  Ardatirion, The article was quite helpful.  It went into discussion of a several hoards of the Samos electrum coins found and a bit of a discussion of electrum in general.   A recent hoard of 12 Samos coins surfaced and are referred to as the 1998 hoard.  This contained fractions and no full staters.  An 1894 hoard of 18 pieces had 1 stater, weighing 17.31 grams. I weighed my piece with a scientific digital scale calibrated against an ASTM weight set and got 17.32 grams.  Stacks listed the coin as 17.33 g in their auction catalog (Jan 5, 2012, lot# 267).  The article mentions the existence of another stater at 17.22 g.  These pieces were struck according to Euboic-Samarian standard, which differed from the Milesian standard used in Lydia & Ionia*. Gold purity varied, declining from 83.9% gold in the Hektes (1/6 staters) to 46.4% gold, 50.3% silver, and 3.3% copper in the full staters. The copper was used to make the lower gold content in the larger pieces look more golden.  I think someone at the auction firm told me that electrum could vary between 40-80% gold and that my paler piece appeared to be around 40% gold.  I've noticed that paler electrum coins, visually appearing to have lower gold content, sell for much less than nice yellow ones at auction.  In the case of Samos, however, all the larger denominations were made of lower purity gold.  I'd like to contact the author of the article and see if he has/ wants to include my piece in his monograph.  *In Northern Ionia another standard, the Phokaic, was used.[/QUOTE]

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