I don't collect Parthians but now that I have several students that are interested in coins if I can get a coin for less then 15 bucks that is identifiable and unusual I look into it. There are only three of these on acsearch that I could find and they all look crude like hamburger. I could find not one for sale or on any other lists however I am not the best at searching. Having Athena on a Parthian also seemed interesting to me. How many people actually collect Parthians? Is there any demographic data on numbers of ancient collectors anywhere? Parthian Kingdom: Orodes II AE Chalkous Kangavar mint 57-38 BC Obverse: Diademed head left Reverse: Athena standing left References: Sellwood 45.41 var Rare Size: 10mm, 1.37g
That's an interesting LITTLE coin. I, too, think it's interesting the coin depicts Athena, because the main Parthian religions were Zoroastrianism and Babylonian paganism. Nonetheless, Greek was one of the kingdom's official languages, and I imagine there were people who followed Greek paganism, too.
The Athena is quite feminine looking(besides the headgear)in contrast to the ruthless tyrant with a bad case of acne on the obverse. Any of the figures of popular Greek and Roman mythology holds great interest to my students. It is diminutive but it might just be the finest specimen outside the BMC.
That would be an interesting question but the answer would require trampling all over privacy rights so I doubt those with the answer will be coming forth soon. I used to collect a few Parthians but the silver got pricey and the bronzes got ridiculous as more people realized that they started as 'rough fine' and went down from there. These are the ones I had when I did my page on them back in 1998. Few were as much as $15 then.
There are a few Parthian bronzes with Greek deities on the reverse, mainly because there was a significant Hellenized population in many of the cities of Mesopotamia. Seleucia-on-the-Tigris (note the name, derived from the founder of the Seleucid dynasty) issued many bronzes with Tyche on the reverse. Here's one of Vologases IV: How many people collect Parthian coins? It's definitely a niche area, even within the ancients field, but it seems to be growing. Here on CoinTalk, I'd say that @Bob L. and @dougsmit are the most visible Parthian collectors. (I've also been known to dabble a bit. ) There's also several others here who have started with Parthians, and others who own a token few. So it seems to be reasonably popular in the ancients field. I'd say it's less popular than Roman Imperial, but more popular than Axumite. As far as I know the OP coin is scarce (I've never owned one) though, in its current condition, it's hard for me to call it beautiful. Still, it is interesting, and if you only paid $15 then you did pretty well.
Thanks Parthicus. It just seems that someone of the major sellers or auction houses would have sometime or other invested in some market research to get some ballpark figures on who is collecting what, or how many people are buying what. Not like individuals names etc. but just general demographics to target their advertising, shows and all. You see a lot of Parthian Drachmas- they are intriguing and interesting, they are popular enough that i had one as a teenager in the 60s when I basically hung out at Alex Malloy's booth at the White Plains coin shows and a couple stores in NYC. This here coin cost me 12.50 plus a few dollars shipping. If I don't keep it I will find some student who may retain their interest in coins and appreciate that there are very few around even if they may not be of great value monetarily. i have one student who is kinda of obsessed with the ruthless tyrants in history as some pre-teen boys especially sometimes enjoy that. He would be quite interested in Orodes II if it is true that he conspired with his brother to murder their father. He told me how much he knew about Caligula so right now he is researching out Caracalla for a coin I had kicking around of his. I told him don't worry I think he was just as bad as Caligula!
