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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Ed Snible, post: 3192556, member: 82322&quot;]You are correct that it is nearly impossible to tell the fractional coins apart.&nbsp; I am opposed to the names numismatists use.&nbsp; A &quot;trihemiobol&quot; is 3/2 of an obol but it is also 1/4 of a drachm.&nbsp; A grammarian might call it a trihemiobol. I suspect a merchant would call it a quarter drachm or quarter stater.</p><p><br /></p><p>To look for patterns it is helpful to construct a histogram of the weights.&nbsp; Here is one I made for the early coins of Abydos from auction records and museum collections:[ATTACH=full]824535[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>Unfortunately there aren&#039;t enough samples to be sure of anything!&nbsp; The smallest bar, 0.1-0.2g, is called a &quot;tetartemorion&quot;.&nbsp; I believe it is real, but maybe not called that name.&nbsp; Then there is a mess between 0.5g and 1.5g.&nbsp; It looks like a few peaks but the number of peaks changes depending on the number of histogram buckets selected.&nbsp; You might see one, two, or three denominations here.</p><p><br /></p><p>There is a nice cluster from 4.9g-5.2g which is called &quot;drachm&quot; but might be a &quot;stater&quot;.&nbsp; No clue if the one-offs from 1.8 to 4.8g represent the rare denominations they are called in the catalogs or if someone at the mint was having a bad day.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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