ANCIENT - Dark Age Silver - Confiscated Church Plate- 610-641 AD

Especially the Merovingian! Maybe you even have something better than those dreadful little deniers of Marseilles.

 

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And with regards to the Dark Ages of 500-1000 AD, in my view I don't really include Byzantium in that and see it more of a Western European phenomena. Little coinage minted, various kingdoms squabbling over land and resources, disease, low standard of living for the average people, are things that characterize the Dark Ages for me. Byzantium during this era, while having its own problems like military setbacks and disease outbreaks, seemed well enough off that I don't consider it as being affected by the Dark Ages. If I were to give it a "dark ages" it would be the period between the Crusader conquest of Constantinople in 1204 and Byzantium's final fall in 1453.

 

I would love a dreadful little denier of Marseilles, if its within my budget of course. I have no Dark Ages Frankish (Merovingian+Carolingian) coinage. Recently almost got a Carolingian for a great price but it got sold. Still get a bit down thinking about it

 

Sadly, me too.

[video=youtube;RBHZFYpQ6nc]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBHZFYpQ6nc[/video]

 

Horrible at photos, kind of known for it.

My favorite amongst these miserable little coins is a Ostrogothic ROMA INVICTUS 40 nummi with wolf and twins reverse. VG at best, but the story behind this coin is just fantastic. My merovingian is one of those Ostrogothic/Merovingian issues, where they are not quite sure WHO imitated the Byzantine coin. I have another, just not sure where it is. Miserable little dark brown, (black) copper thing, it just came in the flip labeled meronvingian.

 

Interesting and true. This is where you see all those fine Byzantine pieces regress back to the level of coins of the 5th century Italian Peninsula.

 

Any you don't want, they'll have a good home with me This era is one of my focuses in collecting so you can understand my enthusiasm in wanting to see them. So far in my collection I have 3 Vandal, 3 Ostrogothic, and 1 Visigothic. I also have a Northumbrian issue.

 

Unfortunately, very few coins that come within my black hole of "the pile" ever escape. I will try to dig up some to take pics, but with baby at home, another on its way, coins in SDB, etc it always is a struggle. I always meant for this timeframe to be another sub-collection for me, but I never got much traction since the coins are so scarce. I mean truly scarce, scarcer than Sogdian, kidarite, and lots of other cultures I collect and others consider exceedingly rare. Especially meronvingian. Those little buggers are REALLY hard to track down.

Extremely interesting period of history though.

For Carolingian, there were some Charles the bald that were pretty common a couple of years ago. It seems hoards of them hit the market more often than Ostrogothic or meronvingian.

 

It's no problem at all if you can't . I don't want it to seem like I'm pressuring you to show them.

 

I know what you mean. Still though, it adds to the great feeling of when I do find one.

 

No pressure at all sir. I just suck at photography, and have like maybe an hour if I am lucky at most at home at night.