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Just outside of Sardis was the source of much of the Lydians’ wealth: the Pactolus River. The river was known for its valuable electrum deposits, which is a naturally occurring alloy of silver and gold. After the electrum was mined from the river, it was then brought to Sardis were it was refined into gold and silver in what was one of the world’s first precious metals refineries. <ref>Kuhrt, p. 570</ref> Modern scholars generally attribute the mining of gold and the minting of coins in Sardis to Gyges. Although the mining of precious metals was done in other Bronze Age cultures long before the Lydians, the use of coins as a currency standard was a revolutionary step forward in economics. Up until that point in world history, most people traded gold as dust or in ingots, which was often unreliable and cumbersome, but the Lydians were the first people to “use gold and silver coinage and to introduce retail trade.” <ref>Herodotus, p. 44</ref> The wealth of Lydia was already well established by the time Croesus came to power, but like a good entrepreneur he was able to parlay his inherited riches into even more wealth.

===Croesus on the Throne===