Finally A Dolphin

At a local coin show over the weekend, I found a dealer who had some cheap dolphins. I had bought one in a JA auction, but it seemed to have bronze disease and the seller backed out. Here is the one I ended up with:


1.47 g 24 mm

 

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Do you mind submitting a brief description of what these are? (I know if I google "dolphins" it's going to be a whole lot of the wrong stuff...)

Thanks

 

Cast money used in 5th-4th century BC Olbia, Sarmatia.

 

From the little I know, these were a kind-of proto-money from some of the Greek Isles back 400-350 BC. @Sallent knows infinitely more than me... https://www.cointalk.com/threads/not-really-a-coin-sarmatia-olbia-proto-money-dolphin.293467/

Maybe ask Doug @GDJMSP he used them as a kid...

 

Cool score Kentucky!

 

Wow very cool may I ask how much these go for? And that would be one interesting slab of you sent it in .


Thanks,
Jacob

 

They are from Sarmatia, Olbia an area by the black sea in what is modern day Ukraine. The people of Olbia adopted these instead of coinage and they were used exclusively in the 400's BCE. Even after the city started to mint regular coinage, the dolphin cast proto money persisted for a long time.

Here is mine

 

Here's my pod!

 

@Youngcoin prices vary. The cruder examples being more common, will naturally be cheaper. You could theoretically get one for as little as $20 if you looked around.

More realistic examples with eyes and fins will fetch higher premiums. I suppose an example like mine may be around $50 and I could see a truly superb example going for at least $60+

 

So, I'm assuming these are quite small (i.e., smaller than a US quarter?) based on the photos?

 

Wow! I'm so looking into those! Thank you for the info I was expecting a "oh only a price tag of 259.99".

Also Sallent why the sad emojii profile thing? Everything alright?


Thanks,
Jacob

 

My tetradrachm there is about 27mm. My dolphin is slightly longer than most because the fin is intact, plus mine is of a longer style. The style of these varied over the nearly century and a half they were made.

 

There are some bargains in Greek coinage. Maybe not as many as Roman, but there are plenty of sub-$100 Greek bronze coins, and even a decent sample size of sub-$100 Greek silver coins.

 

I'll have to keep an eye out for one. Now that I've seen it on CoinTalk...the universe has a way of putting one where I can see it.

Please, please don't hate me when I find one with eyes, tail, fins, and iPad (with the ancient app "dolphins vs. zombies") on it in full detail. It'll probably be fake anyway.

 

I have a small pod:


Thrace - Olbius AE Dolphin money



Thrace - Olbius AE Dolphin money round ver


Thrace Sarmatia - Olbia 5th C BCE AE Cast Dolphin 27mm 1.75g

 

I have a large pod , stuck 20 on a piece of carton , looks nice imho.

 

Frank Robinson often has these on as a fixed-price special... check out #520 at the bottom of the page here: http://www.fsrcoin.com/e.html. You don't have to buy 10, if you only want 1 I'm sure he'd send it to you for 5 bucks or so.

 

Nice!

 

I need to get me one of these! They're so neat!

Erin