Coin Talk

I recently bought a rare and potentially extremely-valuable knife coin where the dealer was uncertain about its authenticity. It was marketed as a contemporary counterfeit because the consignor (a friend) had XRF data showing the coin to be majority lead. I liked contemporary counterfeits, the coin looked ancient enough, and the price was right, so I bought it. I know the collection, so I knew this coin had a pre-1990 provenance.

About a year and a half ago, I posted a thread where I worked through a logical analysis of exceedingly rare coins in an effort to authenticate them.

https://www.cointalk.com/threads/authenticating-exceedingly-rare-chinese-coins.321153/

I think it would be interesting, as well as helpful to those interested in ancient Chinese coins, to repeat the same exercise for this coin.

My Process

I always start from “what do I see on the coin” and compare the observations to to what I would expect from a counterfeit or genuine coin. To...

Here is 10,000 mark note that made a subtle political statement, a German inflation era Vampire note. After the end of World War I, the Treaty of Versailles called for the German state to pay reparations for the war. The payments crippled the German Weimar Republic and sowed the seeds for World War II. It is truly amazing how stupid the diplomats of that era were.

Wartime inflation had already disrupted the German economy and had sent the Germans into an inflationary mind set. Between the end of the war in 1918 and 1919, the inflation rate was running at 20% per year. Between 1919 and 1921 prices for food and other basic essentials went up eight times for an average inflation rate of 400% per year.

In January 1922 the German Government introduced a 10,000 mark note which was the largest denomination at the time. This note featured a scowling portrait of German artist Albrecht Durer (1471 to 1528) with a thick neck. If...

Hello! Here is a piece I wanted to share with everyone. I'd also appreciate any opinions, feedback, or other examples of these small gold coins! It appears to have a lot of varying details and information online and I just wanted to try to compile everything here and see what looked right.

I posted this coin in a FB group looking for ID and authentication help. Several people weighed in and thought it looked good and one person shared the below portion of Mitchiner's Oriental Coins and Their Values: Non-Islamic States & Western Colonies.

From Mitchiner's portion it appears to be a 1586 type; the gold fanam struck by the indigenous kingdoms of Kalicut...

Yet again we find ourselves in the midst of the Ghouls, Witches and Undead ready to slit each others bloodless throats at a moments notice. Though, enough about US politics it's the season of the WITCH, BABY!!! Time to celebrate all things spooky, ooky, cooky and macabre...ooky
In last years edition of CTGBITN we had plenty of blood curdling scares and terrors! If you would like to catch some serious fun and nightmare fodder check it out:
https://www.cointalk.com/threads/coins-that-go-bump-in-the-night.324528/
This year I will save you the history lesson on "all ghouls day" and get right to what you are all here for, THE VIOLENCE...I mean, the coins. Yes, of course, the coins
I started last years Creepshow off with one of Vlad "The Impaler" Tsepish (That is the real life Dracula for those with virgin necks) Grandpappys. So why not start this year off with his...

As always, post anything you feel is relevant!

Though Nero is credited with introducing the radiate crown -- representing the rays of the sun -- on his dupondii to indicate they were a double denomination (two asses), dupondii issued for empresses continued to be issued for well over a century with a draped bust, without any features apart from metallic composition to distinguish them from the as denomination. When patinated, it can be impossible to distinguish between an as and a dupondius of coins issued for an empress through the beginning of the third century.

When Caracalla introduced the double denarius (antoninianus), he adopted the convention of the radiate crown to indicate a double denomination, analogous to the relationship of the dupondius to the as. He also issued antoniniani for his mother, Julia Domna. Because the moon is the feminine equivalent of the sun, a crescent on the shoulders -- as depicted in the iconography of Juno Lucina -- was adopted to...

Dear Friends of Greek mythology!

Today I want to present one of the most mysterious gods of the Greek mythology, Darzalas the Great God of Odessos. Actually he is more a Thracian god. But very few is known about him. Here is what I could find out. But first three related coins:

1st coin
Thracia, Odessos, Septimius Severus, AD 193-211
AE 26, 9.98g, 26.34mm, 225°
obv. AV K Λ CEΠ - CEVHP[O]C Π
bust, draped and cuirassed, laureate, r.
rev. O - ΔHCCE - ITΩN
The Great God of Odessos, in himation, stg. l., holding cornucopiae and sacrifying
from phiale over altar l.
Die break on rev.
ref. AMNG I/1, cf. 2260 (here gorgoneion on breastplate); SNG Copenhagen 672 var.


2nd coin:
Thracia, Odessos, Gordian III & the Great God, AD 238-244
AE 27, 11.31g, 27.37mm, 180°
obv. AVT K M ANT ΓOPΔIANOC / AVΓ
Confronted busts of Gordian III, draped and cuirassed, laureate, r., and the Great
God, in himation and with kalathos, l., with cornucopiae over l....

In my Coin World podcast from the 2019 Dayton EAC Convention discussion on counterfeits we discussed 3 "families" of fakes, the 1804 "C-6" half cent set, the 1833 "N-5" large cent set and the 1795 "off-center bust" dollar set.

The 1795 off-center bust, known as variety B-14, BB-51 is unique to the date and an obvious bad Numismatic choice for a family of differently dated counterfeits! Comparison images courtesy PCGS:



From the internet on a popular Coin Forum two different examples were separately posted for review and discussion; the main concern was authenticity by both OP’s.


I have created a set of images comparing this with the second posted example and highlighted common marks between the two as follows.


These common marks have...

« A bad day in London is still better than a good day anywhere else »
I love the British Museum, I love Big Ben and I even adore the British accent. But London ( Londinium) is also a place with a rich history in the ancient Roman world. So let’s overview some interesting details about this famous polis and mostly about his monetary workshop.
The city
The founding of the city was around 50 AD. The Roman governor of Britain ( Ostorius Scapula ) gave orders to build a permanent base on the north bank of the Thames. Londinium comes from the Celtic Londinion and may relate to a personal name. In 60 AD, Boudicca, Queen of east Anglian tribe the Iceni, instigates a revolt. They sacked and burned the city to the ground. An estimated 70,000- 80,000 Roman and British were then killed in the area, many by tortures. The second, heavily planned, birth of Londinium prospered, and it supplanted Colchester as the capital of the Roman province of Britannia...

Here it is by popular request, an ultra-condensed version of my write-up on the evolution of the Indo Sassanian drachm from the Peroz prototype through the end of the Gadhaiya Paisa!

These coins were inspired by the Sassanian silver drachms of Shah Peroz I (459-484), which were by far the most numerous coins in central Asia, largely because Peroz lost three wars against the Hephthalite Huns, and twice was forced to pay enormous ransoms consisting of hundreds of thousands of coins each to free himself and his son Kavadh from captivity. His final loss in 484 resulted in his death on the battlefield.

How exactly these came to inspire the predominant trade currency of medieval India is a source of scholarly debate, but Maheshwari (Imitations in Continuity) argue that the Gurjjar people, who were a nomadic central Asian warrior society and ostensibly slave-mercenaries of the Hunas, migrated south into what is today Gujarat around 500 AD, filling the power void left by the...

Introduction:

Numismatic terminology can be confusing, especially for those new to ancient coin collecting. Part of the difficulty stems from the fact that the terminology in use arises out of a centuries long tradition of studying and writing about coins. Another part of the difficulty is that we truly don't know the names of certain denominations in use in antiquity, particularly the names of the coins of the Roman imperial period after Constantine I. Therefore, our terminology is a mixture of traditional and modern terms, and often there are two (or more) words for the same denomination. This is not an essay about the various denominations. What follows is a discussion of how certain terms pertaining to copper and copper-alloy coins came into being and how we use them today.

What's up with the word brass?

Ancient coins are made out of copper, orichalcum, or bronze. Why such terms as "first brass" or "second brass" when some of these coins aren't even made out of...