Unknown Greek Silver - Helios and Rose? Help, please.

This is my first ever post on a collector's forum, so I please let me know if I violate protocol, etc. I have been reading the posts here for some time and have greatly admired the expertise and overall friendliness of the members' posts. I have learned a lot, so I decided to sign up.

I've been collecting ancient coins for 30 years (exactly - my first purchase was in 1987 - a denarius of Septimius Severus, "Mars Pater" reverse - I still have it). That's a long time, but I am no expert, just a rank amateur. Roman silver is what I mostly seek, but I am pretty omnivorous when it comes to ancients.

Anyway, for my first post, I was wondering if I could get some help on a coin I bought on eBay a couple years back. It was advertised as an "unknown ancient Larissa silver coin 1.2g" which is what is kind of looked like. I enjoy unknowns like this because it gives me an opportunity to do some researching. With the resources on the Web, I can usually track down what I have (I recently figured out - thanks to CoinTalk posts - just what in the heck Genius was doing with a decapitated bearded head on the reverse of a Maximinus II follis - thank you!).

But this one continues to stump me. The obverse looks like the usual facing head of Helios (or Medusa?) seen on Larissa or Rhodes drachmas and fractions. But the reverse baffles me. An incuse rose bud? Nothing I've found from Rhodes looks like this, however. I have Google Imaged this thing dozens of different ways and I just can't find another example. I'm beginning to think it is a tourist fake of some sort. I paid $10.50 for it, so you won't devastate me if you tell me its a phony.

Weight - 1.2 grams. Length - 13 mm (long axis)

Can anybody help?

 

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Welcome to the forum. I will be interested in this thread, I have never seen that reverse either.

 

Welcome. I fear I am right with Pishpath in being unfamiliar with that reverse but the style of the face strikes me as within reason for the region and era so I would not write off the coin quite yet and hope someone more familiar with that region can help.

On the other hand, I am more into Septimius so I'll show a few Mars Pater coins that might seem familiar. The first two are Rome mint examples of the common variety. The obverse legend ends IMP III. I got the first one in 1988 but it was not my first coin. The second is a flipover doublestrike so it is a mess combining both sides on both sides. This period was pretty sloppy at Rome so we see a number of error coins and other signs of poor workmanship. Well centered, full legend examples are not common.


Last is a rare version from the Syrian mint 'Emesa' with obverse legend ending COS II. The Mars figure from this mint usually has the legend MARS VICTOR rather than PATER.

 

It's a neat coin, definitely looks like Larissa, but no idea about the reverse. From the picture, it does not look fake. Neat coin and welcome to CT.

 

I know absolutely nothing about your coin but could the reverse be some kind of stylized bird seen from above? Just a thought.

 

Welcome, @Marsyas Mike! Glad you de-lurked

As for your coin, I too have no idea about that reverse but agree that the obverse looks believable-- just not paired with that... whatever it is... (looks like female external genitalia; maybe a stylized flower or grain?).

I'll also follow this thread with interest.

Also, I'm copying the full-sized images in this post so others don't have to click each image to enlarge them:

 

Well, the weight would make it a diobol, but the diameter is a little large unless it's very thin. I wonder if it's silver? Maybe you could measure its density.

 

Intriguing! Another thing the reverse reminds me of is the "germinating grain" type of Skotussa - also in Thessaly, like Larissa.

 

@TIF thanks for that, I can't see anything else now

 

Yeah, me too. Now my mind is in the gutter.

Welcome @Marsyas Mike, and like everyone else, I have no idea. I've never seen anything like it on an ancient coin. This many collectors with no clue makes ya wonder, eh? Good luck with it.

 

Thank you so much for all of your comments and warm welcomes. I'm kind of glad the coin is causing some difficulty - I was afraid it would turn out to be an easy one and I'd be wasting your time. I'll keep checking in hopes somebody can track it down. The suggestions you've all made have been thought-provoking - birds, germinating grain, female parts. Interesting.

There was some thoughts on the flan. It is very uneven - thin on one end and chunky on the other. You can kind of tell from the photos where it bulges from the strike, particularly on the non-face side. It looks to me to be good silver, but I don't have the skill or equipment to go beyond a guess. There is no sign of crystalization, which might make its ancient origins unlikely (in my limited experiences, these tiny Greek silver coins are often crystalized to some extent).
Thank you, TIF for copying my images into the post. How do you do this? I was looking for a CoinTalk newbie guide but couldn't find anything about posting images.

I love those Septimius Severus "Mars Pater" examples, dougsmit. I have a supposedly "rare" Septimius Severus denarius I might start another thread on, and I'll toss up my Mars Pater example there (I did not know about the "COS" obverse legend variety - mine is the common type). Very interesting doublestrike.

Again, thank you all. This has been very enjoyable.

 

great minds think alike...and so do others.. that's what i was thinking too.

 

Just select the "full image" option when you upload the files. It will insert the pictures right in your post where the cursor is at the time.

 

Ah ha! Thank you.

 

No need to feel dirty about thinking this

It seems reasonable to put such a thing on a coin-- the source of life, and all. Why would showing the generative part of female anatomy be verboten when there are abundant coins of ithyphallic Priapus and other anatomically explicit themes?

For that matter, don't barley grains on ancient coins also serve as a stand-in for female anatomy? Sure looks like it to me-- dead ringer. Plus, it's nicely symbolic: seeds, new life...

 

i concur with you and the ancients made no bones about it, on coins or otherwise. when they found pompey and herc. cities, the phallic blessing pieces were either destroyed or hidden from the public. it's difficult to overcome mindset prejudices even the study of history.

 

My mind is still in the gutter!

 

I have nothing to contribute other than welcome to the forum! Hope you stick around and show off some of the coins you've collected over the years.

 

The reverse is very puzzling.

I have seen three nested shapes on Greek depictions of a seashell, but this doesn't look quite like those. Example:
http://www.cngcoins.com/Coin.aspx?CoinID=96438

I wondered if the reverse was half of a Greek-style thunderbolt, stuck on a small flan from large dies, but I couldn't find any Greek thunderbolts with the leaf-like shape. Example:
http://www.cngcoins.com/Coin.aspx?CoinID=96443

I'm stumped!

 

It's really an odd coin. First thought it could be used to scare furious children. Joke.