Byzantine Silver

How Byzantine coins look is the main reason why I don't collect them... my sense of aesthetics is just narrow that way. However, for me, the hexagram is one of those coins that is just too cool to not have, if only because I like the idea that it was formerly a piece of Byzantine church silverware... and, taking things one step further, before it had become a church plate or lamp holder, it was possibly siliquae, argentii or denarii of the older Empire that was melted down for use. The full circle of coin life... from coin, to silverware, and back to coin .


BYZANTINE EMPIRE
Heraclius, with Heraclius Constantine
AR Hexagram. 6.42g, 25mm. Constantinople mint, AD 615-638. DOC 64; Hahn MIB 140; Sear Byzantine 798. O: ∂∂ NN hЄRACLIЧ Єτ hЄRA COnS, Heraclius and Heraclius Constantine seated facing on double throne, each crowned and holding globus cruciger; cross between. R: ∂ЄЧS A∂IЧτA ROmANIS, cross potent on globe above three steps; K to right.

 

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One of my dream coins is an 1/8th stavraton of the last emperor, Constantine XI. It was documented that his coins were made from the melting down of the silver relics of Hagia Sophia and other churches. They were produced to pay the Italian mercenaries in a doomed last ditch effort to defeat the Turks and raise the siege of Constantinople.

Coins of Constantine XI are very rare, with the majority of examples known from a hoard of about 100 coins found in the 1990s.

They were probably reasonably priced when first disbursed to museums and private collectors, but have now become prohibitively expensive for the likes of me. I have had to content myself with a coin of the penultimate emperor, Constantine's brother and predecessor John VIII:

 

Cool info, thanks! Some quick searching makes it apparent how rare and desirable they are. I probably should qualify the end of that statement with "for collectors of this period"... and for them I can only imagine how one of these would be a holy grail sort of acquisition. The majority of other collectors will probably be left scratching their heads and wondering why a little scrap of metal like this would hammer for $13,000...



The coin above from this auction.

 

So what I like about Byzantine coins is the challenge of finding the nice ones from piles and piles of crap. I guess by the time we get to Constantine XI there really is only crap. I may be in the market for one of his wretched pieces - once I have every other "acquire-able" Roman and Byzantine portrait (ie not Saturninus).

 

I think many of us will now add the type to our "Holy Grail" list

One of the dangers of publicizing interesting coins on public forums

 

I have actually been getting into Byzantine coins. The size of the coin is one minor factor, I mean where else can you pick up a large heavy coin that old? Also like the fact that its a hunt to get ones in better grade. Most of the ones I see are in pretty beat up shape. Then there are the rarities, I don't have any rare ones yet but as mentioned by @Nap there are some that are really rare and not commonly known by collectors.

 

I think most of us know that Byzantine silver was, for most of their thousand year history, uncommon. As in the case of this coin at this time it was an emergency issue. In normal, peaceful l times (pretty unusual for the Byzantines) how was silver supposed to fit into the circulating medium?

 

I can only speak for the early "Byzantine" Empire.

The last major emissions of Siliquae in the Eastern Roman Empire were under Emperor Valens, after him they would continue to be struck but in much smaller issues. By the time of Theodosius II silver coinage was used primarily for ceremonial purposes. The coinage reform of Anastasius(491) did not include silver, the large folles replaced silver coins in day to day transactions. This was not the case in the Western Empire, silver was still primarily used even well after the "Byzantine" reconquest of Italy and Africa. This explains why silver issues(Siliquae) from the west are more common than rare ceremonial issues from Constantinople, they actually circulated.
I cant speak for later silver coins, but I hope that I at least answered some of your question.

 

Because these are so ugly and poorly struck, they are a mess to try to identify. They can easily be confused with coins of John VIII, which are much more common. If you are considering buying a coin purported to be of Constantine XI, make sure you can trace it to the Bendall hoard (99% of the known coins, especially the late siege issues, are from this hoard). All of the coins were illustrated and should be identifiable.

http://www.persee.fr/doc/numi_0484-8942_1991_num_6_33_1959

The plates can be found here:

http://www.persee.fr/doc/numi_0484-8942_1991_num_6_33_2709

If you find a coin not of this hoard, be extremely skeptical unless you really trust the source.

 

So that was the reason why these Hexhagram silver coins popped up and ceased immediately in short time. They were in hurry to pay the troops after the devastating invasion from first Persia and then Arabian Peninsula and thus they melted down everything silver from the churches?

I love my hexagrams even more now after I heard that as it just puts more history into them.

That sounds very plausible from what I have read as Heraclius persuaded the church to give its resources and young men to him (in order to make them soldiers). He won against all odds, and had Byzantium had some decades to recover instead of meeting a fresh Arabian army short after the end of Byzantine-Persian war the things may have turned out in a completely another direction.

Mine here, both are the same type, the first weird clipped 6,8gram the second round one 6,6gram: