"Cyprus imitation" with dark patina

Got this in an uncleaned lot. First one I ever found, and better than any subsequent ones.

 

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That's a surprisingly interesting coin considering it was in an uncleaned lot!

 

Cool OP-addition, Mark ... congrats

Ummm, can you please tell me a few more of the coin-details? (who, what, when?)

thanks

 

Looks like it cleaned up very well. Any chance you snapped some before photos?

 

interesting!

what's going on with the figure on the obverse left? it looks like someone is in a rabbit costume! neat!

 

Totally looks like!!

 

You should see its companion coin...a copy of Constans II so bad it looks absolutely cartoonish. Very significant, but childlike.

Thanks for interest everyone. I'll work up a description.

 

I'm really pleased that readers would be interested in such an odd area of the hobby.

This is from shakey memory...I think Foss says that this and a "Bust" type (seems to be Constans II 'Inper Const' from Year III) are the candidates for first Arab Byzantine imitations. The prototype of this one is a Heraclius struck at Cyprus (I only have one of these, but many Arab copies). After awhile one gets used to the cartoon character portrayals and the odd letters. I guess they'd be after 640 AD. The "Cyprus Imitations" typically have the "frozen year" (17) as the moneyers were uninterested in updating any of the text. This issue is almost always thin (previous folles hammered flatter) and rugby ball shaped...half coin rounded at the edges.

I encountered some in big batches from an online source...bulk lots which were unlabelled, but mostly Arab Byzantine and inexpensive. All had a peculiar dark patina with some rubbed off a long time ago, hence the warm, dark copper highlights. They had light dirt on them...cleaned up so easily and beautifully that I thought they might be prepared fakes. But I kept buying almost all the lots he offered until they were all gone, and they were so varied and obscure that I eventually accepted them as legitimate. A few turned out to be rarities and ones with scarce countermarks.

So that's how I stumbled ignorantly into a collection of many dozens of gorgeous early Arab imitations.

 

Can't find a photo of the crude, early Arab-Byzantine Constans II, but found my catalogue drawing from a couple years ago. Heraclius/Cyprus imitation at top, Constans II "Inper Const" inspired at bottom.

 

Here is an example:

They are numerous but often do not have the both the full year (X/V/II) and mintmark legible.

 

Oh, that's a beauty.

I would have guessed that's a legit Byzantine issue.