Coin Talk

Collecting Byzantine trachys is quite challenging (Byzantine coins, in general, is an acquired taste). The condition of most of these coins are poor with missing legends, ragged and split edges, multiple strikes, and due to the concave nature of the flan, missing features in the strike. Sometimes you end up with a very skinny Virgin Mary or a two-headed Christ. To add insult to injury, they are damn hard to photograph due to its awkward shape.

According to Simon Bendall, these coins were struck twice, once on the left and then on the right. His theory was that if the lower die had greater curvature than the upper die, then the middle of the coin would be fully struck with weak or blank sides. The opposite occurs if the upper die had greater curvature than the lower die. The edges would be fully struck and the center would be weak or blank.



This can be observed in the following trachy that has a very...

A recent trip to visit the remains of Diocletian’s palace in Split, Croatia have had me fascinated with all things Diocletian for the last several months! I have acquired two coins this year that were struck under Diocletian that I would like to discuss. My research led me in a lot of interesting directions so I will apologize in advance concerning the excessively long essay. I just can’t seem to curb my enthusiasm for my favorite new acquisitions. I hope that by writing essays like this on my research and offering it here to be freely available it will help others to learn when otherwise some of the information might be more difficult or expensive to find.
Diocletian was born some time ca. AD 244 near the Roman provincial capital of Salona in Illyricum (near modern day Solin, Croatia) during the anarchic period known as the Crisis of the Third Century. The first 40 or so years of...

I am currently engrossed in a book (The Genius of China, by Robert Temple) detailing all of the inventions that China had created, which were eventually adopted by Europeans without giving due credit to the Chinese. (It's a big book, so I look forward to everything else it has to offer.) One of these inventions was an effective horse harness. While I was reading the chapter, I suddenly realized why so many horses are seen pulling chariots on ancient European coins. Let me explain below:

In Europe, the only horse harness was a throat-and-girth harness. Basically, it wrapped around the horse's throat and belly to give a secure attachment. The disadvantage to this arrangement was that the horse gets severely choked and thus becomes quite inefficient. The author claims this is the reason why the Roman Empire had to import all of their grain from egypt; without an effective method to transporting Italian grain by land, it proved to be better to just import the grain by sea....

Since I have joined and introduced myself a while back, I have not yet posted an awful lot of Chinese coins. I must say school has kept me rather busy, and so has reading the new posts on this forum. This weekend however, we had our annual ONS (Oriental Numismatic Society)-meeting, and I made a purchase I am sure you would all quite enjoy.

I am sure the majority of you are all familiar with the ancient Chinese Cash-style coins; a round coin, with a square hole. This type arrived somewhere in the mid to late Warring states period, in the state of 秦 Qin . This however, was not the first type of round coinage of the ancient Chinese states. For the earliest type of round coin was most likely issued by cities in the state of Wei (魏, after the capital move of 361 BC also called 梁 Liang). These earliest round coins, supposedly evolving either from the jade 璧 Bi-disks or bronze vessel rings (both theories are at least somewhat farfetched in my opinion), are rather...

Sasanian Kingdom. AR obol (14.5mm, 0.70g). Ardashir I (c.224-240 AD). Obverse: King's bust right in Sasanian-style crown, legend in Pahlavi script around "Mazdisn bagi Artashatr malkan malka Airan minuchetri meni" ("the Mazda-worshipper, the divine Ardashir, King of Kings of Iran, descended from the gods"). Reverse: Zoroastrian fire-altar, legend around "Nura zi Artashatr" ("Fire of Ardashir"). CNG Auction 407, lot 247 (2017).

Ardashir I was the founder of the Sasanian or Neo-Persian dynasty. He was (depending on the source) either the son or the grandson of a Persian nobleman named Sasan, for whom the dynasty would eventually be named. At the time, Persis was merely one of the parts of the Parthian kingdom, where a local ruler was allowed some autonomy as long as he remained loyal to the central Parthian government and continued to pay taxes and levy troops. Ardashir apparently overthrew the...

This token has been on my wish list since August 30, 2013 when I visited the ruins of the Byron Hot Springs Hotel and Resort.

I finally got one.


Byron Hot Springs Hotel and Sanitarium Token
Brass, 21mm, 4.57gm
Obverse: BYRON HOT SPRINGS / HOTEL AND SANITARIUM / CAL
Reverse: GOOD FOR / 12½ CENTS / IN TRADE AT BUFFET

The token dates from the period 1901 to 1912 when the hotel operated as a health resort and sanitarium.

Byron Hot Springs and the town of Byron are located in California's Central Valley, near the cities of Stockton and Sacramento.


Byron Hot Springs Hotel entrance in 2013

The sulfur springs originally attracted Indians and then settlers.

The first hotel ran from 1889 to 1901, the second as the Byron Hot Springs Hotel and Sanitarium ran from 1901 to 1912, and the third as the Byron Hot Springs Hotel and Resort ran from 1913...

After coming across a tin William and Mary halfpenny (1690), I was forced to learn something about the coinage of tin farthings and halfpence.

Charles II (1660-1685) started minting tin farthings in 1684 for very understandable reasons. First, he wanted to bolster the suffering tin industry. Second, the intrinsic value of tin was lower than copper. This would assure a greater profit for the Crown by replacing the more expensive copper with tin.

As an anti-counterfeiting measure, a square plug of copper was placed in the center of the coin. This effort to prevent counterfeiting with the copper plug did not increase the coins’ popularity (or aesthetic appeal), however.



(Charles II tin farthing 1684. Not my coin. Not my picture.)

His successor James II (1665-1668) ordered tin halfpence with a copper plug in 1685.



(James II halfpenny from 1687. Not my picture. Not my coin.)

After supplanting James in 1688, William and Mary...

You may already be familiar with the “Follow the Leader" threads in the World coin forum. Let’s start a similar thread here in the Ancients forum.

We will keep it simple. If you can post an item depicting the current theme, then you get to post a second item of your own to start a new theme. Post your coin & state the theme that goes along with your coin. The theme might be coins with owls, coins with COS II, or coins with severed heads. Anything goes (coin, token, medal, artifact, etc) but we should keep it to something ancient. The next poster then posts something containing that theme & then posts/declares some new theme.

Here is an example. If someone posts a coin with an owl on it, and declares the theme to be "owls", the next person has to post an ancient item with an owl on it. That person then posts another coin (or the same coin) & states the new theme. OK? Let’s try this for a few days & have some fun.

We can start this thread with my new Tarentum coin. I...