This is KM#1142 Iran 50 Dinars. Could be dated anywhere between 1315-1332 (1936-1953). I can't translate the writing so I am having a hard time narrowing pinning the date down. Can someone help with this? Coin in question Thanks in advance for any assistance...Mont
Thank you. So in our calendar it would be 1940 correct? This was a gift and the 2x2 it came in is dated 1319 (1901). When I looked up the KM# I saw the date didn't quite match what was written...got me a little confused.
Most Islamic coins use AH (Anno Hegirae) or Hijra dating, which starts the calendar with Muhammad's hijra (journey from Mecca to Medina) in 622 AD. The Islamic religious calendar is lunar-based and is only 354 (or in leap years 355) days long. Thus, over centuries it gets out of synch with the solar calendar. The year 1319 in the standard AH calendar corresponds to 1901 AD. (Actually, April 20, 1901 to April 9, 1902, to be precise.) Your coin's previous owner assumed the date was in AH, looked up the conversion, and wrote down 1901. However, just to make life confusing, some coins from Iran and Afghanistan use a variant calendar called Solar Hijra (SH). This also starts from 622 AD, but uses a solar year of 365 (or leap year of 366) days. Your coin type uses the SH system, so 1319 SH does indeed correspond to 1940 AD. How can you tell if a coin uses the AH or SH system? If it's Islamic but not from Iran or Afghanistan, you can forget the SH. If it is an Afghan or Iranian coin... you have to look it up, the coins don't specify which calendar to use.
The coin is actually dated SH1316 not 1319. Persian numerals are a bit different from normal Arabic numerals
Grrrr...... I remembered the weird Persian 4, but forgot about the 6. Why must you be different, Persian numerals? Why?
