Something fishy about these coins - Thasos Obol

A dealer had purchased a large collection of fish coins & I selected these three. This first coin included a Harlan Berk label.

THRACE, Thasos
AR Obol
435 - 411 B.C.
0.50 grams, 8 mm
Obv: Two dolphins swimming opposite
directions with pellet above & below
Rev: Quaripartite incuse punch
Grade: a VF
Other: Rosen Collection 146, Lockett 1224, Ex (Lewis Egnew Collection) Superior 30 May 1995 lot 7224, Ex Harlan Berk, from Allen Berman Dec 2014.


This second coin is from Cuba and depicts a gar fish. It is a large 5 Peso silver coin. I was attracted to it for the neat fish & BU grade.


This third coin is from Hungary. It is also a large & flashy coin. I was attracted to the cool fish-deco design.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

Nice fishes ;D

 

Thanks. I thought that the two modern coins were pretty cool too.

 

ahahaha => great coins, C89!! (congrats)

Ummmm, "dolphins" aren't fish, but I'll toss-in my similar-example just for kicks!!

ISLANDS off THRACE, Thasos
AR Sixteenth Stater – Hemiobol
Circa 500-480 BC
Diameter: 8 mm
Weight: 0.56 grams
Obverse: Two dolphins swimming in opposite directions; pellets around
Reverse: Quadripartite incuse square






Hmmm, I may have a couple of fish hangin' around as well though ... let me check ... well, here is a fairly modern example ...

Duke of Lorraine, Charles IV (2nd reign)
AR Gros of Nancy
1661-1670 A.D.
Diameter:
Weight: 1.21 grams
Obverse: Crowned shield of arms
Reverse: Eagle



Hmmm, what are those cool fish on the shield? (well, where "I live" they'd be called Northern Pike ... but considering that it's a European coin, I'm fairly sure that they're not from Northern Manitoba)

 

well, i guess we wont worry about taxonomy to much..



i'm in!

i'll refrain from showing by giant tuna again.

 

Nice fishy coins, Collect! Even the modern ones... I really like that Hungarian.

 

Curious? => is it an obol or a hemiobol? (man, it is often so difficult to pin-down the denomination, eh my friend?)

https://cngcoins.com/Search.aspx?PA...R_TYPE_ID_3=1&SEARCH_IN_CONTAINER_TYPE_ID_2=1

 

Yes in deed. The Obol spec is 0.65 grams and the Hemiobol is specified at 0.32 in my Sear book. Obviously you ran into some of the same questions as I had with this little piece of silver.

I was wrestling with the Obol vs Hemiobol question and originally wrote my coin label as Hemiobol. After finding a 0.51 gram example listed as an Obol and 500 B.C. on Widwinds (BMC 18a) I got completely confused. First this all went onto my label & then I took it all off. I figured Mr. Berk knows more than me and he had Obol on his tag and he had 435-411 B.C. on the tag. Apparently the majority of what I found on the Internet stated Obol at about 0.5 grams and the majority stated 435-411 B.C.. I figured that Mr. Berk and the majority wanted me to list it as an Obol and 435-411 on my coin label (so I followed the crowd).

According to my Sear book it could be Sear 1359 (an Obol with 3 pellets in the field dated 510-490 B.C.) which is not depicted in the Sear book (B.M.C.3. 18). On my coin I kind-of see two pellets above & one below. It would be nice if an expert would chime-in.

 

If a coin is 1/16 stater and a stater is 2 drachms then it is 1/8 of a drachm. An obol is 1/6 of a drachm so the closest equivalent would be between the obol and hemiobol. Cities used various weight standards and we don't have a good grasp on all the variations across the Greek world and across the centuries. Coin dealers do the best they can within their understanding but it might be more important to use a term the customers understand than one that would have been good to a money changer of the day. Most obols weigh .6-.7g. Porosity would make .5g acceptable. I suspect that the first owner of these coins had a name for them that was neither obol or hemi. Was it 1/8th or perhaps a two dotter? We should not get too worked up about memorizing things that were off hand conventions of coin dealers a generation or too ago. I'll call little Athenians obol and little Syracusans litra but I'll not claim that other towns had to follow the conventions of those cities.

 

Did you note that CNG called a coin of .56g a hemiobol (or 1/16) but one of .44g an obol.
https://cngcoins.com/Search.aspx?PA...R_TYPE_ID_3=1&SEARCH_IN_CONTAINER_TYPE_ID_2=1

Going down the page, we see quite a variety of weights and styles. I do not consider what they did wrong but more a matter of having to call the things something. The only thing I see wrong here is I don't have a nice one of these. Mine is .4g and has one dolphin. Hemi???


Later they added a head (Nymph, Apollo?) and put the dolphin on the reverse. This one weighs .2g and I have no idea what to call it. 1/32 stater??? Whatever it is, that is a very lifelike dolphin considering the size of the coin.


The more you learn about ancient coins, the more you realize just how stupid you are.

 

=> brutal!! ... were you talkin' to me, personally?!



I'm sorry, but enough is enough!!

=> if you're gonna put Thasos in the thread-title, then I'm gonna get jiggy wit it!!

Thasos, AR Stater
525-463
Satyr carrying Nymph (incuse square)

 

Hmmmm? ... well, how 'bout some other sea folks? (do they count?)


Scallop



Prawn/shrimp



Octopus



Crab

 

I swear that the coins of Thasos (and some other places) were commemorative coins used as advertising tokens. Back in the day when you received a Thasos coin, it basically said "come to Thasos & have a good time". For gosh sakes you have Dionysus on some coins advertising the wine harvest, wine making, & ritual merry making. Then you have the satyr & nymph coins which look like an invitation for more merry making. Was the place a hot vacation spot or what?

 

"Here ya go... it's on the house!"

 

What happens in Thasos stays in Thasos.

 

My meager offerings to this thread:


THASOS AR Drachm
OBVERSE: Naked satyr running right carrying struggling nymph
REVERSE: Quadripartite incluse Square
Struck at Thasos, 463-411 BC 3.40g, 15.9mm
Sear 1748


ISLAND OFF THRACE THASOS AR Trihemiobol
OBVERSE: Satyr running left, holding kylix
REVERSE: ΘΑΣ − ΙΩΝ Amphora
Struck at Thasos, 411-350BC
0,7 g, 12 mm;
SNGCop 1030

 

As long as this thread is mixing ancient with modern, don't ask me why, but I love to collect sets of modern world coins, particularly in aluminum. The current 5 Laari of Maldives has a couple of tuna on the reverse.

 

That's a nice group of fish C89...

How bout a tub...

 

OK, there are many reasons that someone might need to stop fishing. You could run out of bait. You could run out of gas or run out of day light. You could get sun burned or tired. Would you believe that one time we actually had to stop fishing because we couldn't fit any more fish in the boat (and car for the ride home). I think of that day every time the fish are not biting.

Of course we have been back to the spot but never hit the jackpot like that day. We caught our limit of brown, rainbow, and brook trout. We topped-off the coolers, bait buckets & available plastic bags with all the perch we could find. (One normal cooler & one large cooler were topped-off). The only way to keep more fish would be to throw away the remaining ice. We finally had to leave. It was a wild morning. I kept one nice trout for dinner & the brother-in-law kept the balance for smoking & salting.

It's a fish story but a true one.

 

Check out this *huge* yellow catfish. Photo from July 20, 1946. The catfish held by my dad is ~27 lbs. In addition to many smaller ones, the largest catch of that trip was a yellow cat weighing 47 lbs!. I wish I had a picture of that. This fishing hole was on a small stream of the Colorado river in Texas. They ran trot lines and used chicken liver as bait. A shotgun was kept handy to kill the numerous rattlesnakes in the area



To keep it coin-related, here's a recent pickup which I'll eventually post in its own thread:

ARKADIA, Psophis
450-30 BCE
AR obol, 10 mm, 0.69 gm
Obv: forepart of Kerynitian hind right
Rev: fish right, O above, archaic psi below, all within circle incuse
Ref: BCD Peloponnesos 1680 (same dies). Rare.
ex Frank James Collection
ex CNG
ex BCD Collection