I just purchased this unattributed ancient. Should be easy to attribute, with the tiny pianist performing under a dragon while an ear of corn dances appreciatively. Or maybe Sicilian mercenaries.
Welcome to the Ancients Forum, @S. Porter ! Cool coin. If you rotate the coin 90 degrees clockwise, the ear of corn resembles a grasshopper.
Horse on the back? https://www.cngcoins.com/Coin.aspx?CoinID=150335 Snible's razor: If you don't know what a shape is, it's probably a griffin.
Don't let @Ed Snible lead you astray-- you were on the right track. Not Sicily though... my tiny pianist dragon dancing ear of corn bronze is from Sestos. You forgot to mention it but yours also has a sword and the tiny piano player is a frog. THRACE, Sestos c. 3rd-2nd century BCE AE 16.6, 2.35 gm Obv: frog playing a piano; dancing corn ear above right; dragon above left; sword upright in left field, all within dotted border. Rev: chelys; ΣH downward in right field; dotted border Ref: SNG Tiffily 19 Welcome to the ancients board, @S. Porter
This is a bit mean. Unless of course he is a troll. I have no idea. @TIF your attribution is incorrect. It is not a 'dancing corn ear', but the very well known 'Korn Man' (and not to be confused with the 'Screaming Monkey Skull Man". He is distinguished by the evident appearance of two legs crawling the wall, the left arm reaching towards the dragon. How can any of you possibly not see the difference? And to clarify, it is not a frog playing that piano, but the enigmatic Billius Joelius. He is remembered for his association with Daviuus, what was part of the Imperial Navy.
Is it a grasshopper and a griffon? https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=5043357 Please let me be wrong and it be dancing corn, piano frog, and dragon...because that is AWESOME! How did I miss @Ed Snible 's post???? He nailed it, dang it. Oh well, thanks for brightening my day frog pianist.
So this is how Internet rumors get started. Now everyone will need a frog playing the piano bronze from Sestos.
And an elusive Iguanasus from Tiphonia. TIFFILY, Tiphonia c. 5th century BCE AR18, 7.4 gm, and AR 17, 7.4 gm Obv: Forepart of winged iguana left Rev: Monogram within dotted square, incuse Ref: SNG Tiffily 2, respectively This, and one other of similar size and weight, are puzzling. Metallurgic analysis shows them to be 99.9% silver yet they are somewhat porous. Perhaps the copper leached out over the centuries. Some scholars believe this exemplar to be a contemporary counterfeit. TIFFILY, Tiphonia c. 5th century BCE AR 16, 6.0 gm Obv: Forepart of winged iguana left Rev: Monogram within dotted square, incuse Ref: SNG Tiffily 4 This coin is missing from the research lab and it is feared that an unscrupulous member of the archaeology team has sold it on the black market. TIFFILY, Tiphonia c. 5th century BCE AR 16, 7.5 gm Obv: Forepart of winged iguana left Rev: Monogram within dotted square, incuse Ref: SNG Tiffily 5 Most of the coins, including this one, are of terrible workmanship. One would probably be correct in thinking these mint workers had no idea what they were doing. Clearly there was no quality control. Testing shows this coin to be 90% silver and 10% copper. TIFFILY, Tiphonia c. 5th century BCE AR tetradrachm (Rhodian standard), 15 gm Obv: Forepart of winged iguana left Rev: Monogram within dotted square, incuse Ref: SNG Tiffily 10 This coin is also missing and feared sold.
modernday issue of the silver Iguana , Tiffily - Tiphonia - Fuji not missing but crawling around on eBay.
The piano-playing frog couldn't possibly be our furry frog, could it ? And Mr. Peanut former president Jimmy Carter ?
No photoshop on these. They are genuine fake ancient coins hand-struck from hand-carved dies At first I tried heating the flans to red-hot but it was very difficult to move the flan to the striking set-up before they grew too cold, so I made a Sledge-O-Matic Hammer of Hephaestus: That didn't work out well either. The dies and flans go flying every which way upon striking with the trip hammer. Also, I had to be very careful to move my head out of the way too... yikes!. The first Iguanasus coin was lost in the shrubbery, left for some future generation to find and ponder . I need a heavy solid anvil. Maybe an engine block would serve the purpose? Eventually I saw a Big Strong Man wandering down the street and he was recruited to do the sledging. Next time I make these I'm going to just strike cold flans. Heating them probably isn't necessary. Alas, these dies were victims of hurricanes Irma and Maria. The first Iguanasus in that post was made from fine silver precious metal clay (PMC), using the metal dies as a mold. Fun stuff! The coins in the subsequent three pictures were struck. Some were from fine silver flans and others were from junk US silver. Glad to have found a use for that pile of melt-value silver coins! Here's another made from PMC. Since this picture was taken Ive fiddled with the patina and it's bit better.