THRACE, OLBIA,
    Coastal city on the Black Sea northwest of Crimea in modern Ukraine.  City founded by Greeks from Milos.  Famous amongst the numismatists because they made cute coins in shape of dolphins.

THRACE, OLBIA, c. 300-200 BC, bronze dolphin, cf. SG-1684, 25mm, nice eye on one side, F $55.00 sold 8/2/2012
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THRACE, OLBIA, c. 300-200 BC, bronze dolphin, cf. SG-1684, 26mm, similar but no eye, F $90.00 sold 1/9/2014
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THRACE, OLBIA, c. 300-200 BC, bronze dolphin, Karshkovski-pl4 #7, API(X) on rev., 23mm, 2.5g, tiny chip off tip of beak & another chip off the other side, the rest of it is VF $95.00 sold
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THRACE, OLBIA, c. 300-200 BC, bronze dolphin, Karshkovski-pl.4 #13, QY on rev., 23mm, 1.6mm, clear features, decent surfaces, slight porosity, VF $118.00 sold
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THRACE, OLBIA, c. 300-200 BC, bronze dolphin, Karshkovski-pl.4 #13, QY on rev., 24mm, 1.2g, nicer shape, more porous, VF $110.00 sold
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Scroll to bottom of this page for an article on the Olbian dolphins
 
 
 

They struck regular coins too:

THRACE, OLBIA, 3-1 c. BC, 24mm bronze, head of river god Borysthenes L / axe & bow in case, SG-1685, choice XF $61.00 sold
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AN ARTICLE ON THESE I WROTE FOR COLLECTORS UNIVERSE.COM IN 2002
    One of the more unusual types issued during ancient times were the bronze dolphins of Olbia.
    The Greeks were a restless people, who liked to send out trading expeditions all over the world, as far as they could go.  If they liked what they saw in terms of land and opportunities they had a tendency to stay and found colonies.  By the fifth century BC there were Greek settlements all around the Mediterranean Sea and beyond.
    North of Greece proper lay Makedon, where Alexander the Great came from.  The Makedonians were heavily influenced by Greek culture, but were not Greek.  North of Makedonia lay the lands of the wild Thracians, who formed a barrier to Greek expansion overland in that direction.  No problem, the Greeks would sail their boats through the Hellespont, the strait that separates modern European and Asian Turkey, and they proceeded to trade and colonize the coast of the Black Sea in what is now Bulgaria, and Ukraine.
    By the fourth century BC a number of Greek cities were thriving along the Black Sea coast.  Notable among them, at least from a numismatic standpoint, were Pantikapion, Chersonessos, Istros, Mesembria, and Odessos, among others.  These cities issued more or less normal Greek style coins - silver staters and, later, tetradrachms and fractions, and bronzes.  The subject of this article, situated not far from modern Odessa (not to be confused with ancient Odessos), distinguished itself from the others by creating coins in the shape of the badge of the city - the dolphin.
    Olbian dolphins were evidently made from the third to first centuries BC.  Though only one size (35mm - 1.37 inches) is shown in Sear's "Greek Coins and their Values," Russian references show various sizes up to monsters a couple of inches long.  Almost all of them are crude.  Very rarely one shows up with a few letters on it, but most have no legend whatsoever.
    These were rare before the collapse of the Soviet Union.  Now they are moderately easy to find.  Enough are on the market that people get picky about them.  They want them "with full tail."  This is a little difficult, because they were cast on trees, with the dolphins attached by their tails, to be broken off as needed, and since this was the case, most of the time the "tail" will simply mean that the back end of this piece is a little longer than that one.  There are anomalous pieces, however, that seem to have been cast singly, and which have something that can legitimately be described as a tail, and I guess these are the ones that everyone wants.
    There also seem to be two types of surface available - untouched-as-they-came-out-of-the-ground, and nice black, smooth surface, the latter probably worked on by someone in Ukraine.
    Considering the course of numismatic events, where things come on the market and disappear, these little animal coins would seem to be things to grab while one can.
 
 

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