... However the coin in question weighs 4.32g and is evidently a ¼ stater from Samos. ...
For me this is not evident
. Do you have a reference showing that this coin is from Samos?
No, but
work it out for yourself - there are quite a number of unfigured
electrum coins weighing c. 8.7 and 4.35 gm which can only be Euboic
standard half and quarter staters from (it's reasonable to assume) Samos.
(There are also a number of similar 1/3 staters, which weigh c.5.8 gm as we would expect).
... The real point here though is the high gold content of this coin (74%). which suggests that it was struck on raw electrum. ...
I don't think so. In the White Gold book there is an article by Nicholas Cahill, Jill Hari, Bülent Önay, Esra Dokumaci, "Depletion Gilding of Lydian
Electrum Coins and the Sources of Lydian Gold", beginning on page 291 (and obviously not available online).
There they did an analysis of alluvial
electrum from different spots around
Sardis in
Lydia. The result was that the samples hat a gold content of mostly more that 98% and thus
had been nearly pure gold. The
alloy for
electrum coins
had deliberately been mixed.
Regards
Altamura
[/quote]
Lydia is of course not Samos. For the full story see here:
https://www.glebecoins.org/electrum/index.htmlRoss G.