Is this tiny coin from Neandria?

I love this tiny 5mm, .08 g., hemitartemorion. The person who sold it to me said it was "Like Neandria" but he could only find an obol on Wildwinds. Can anyone verify the ID for me? Only a Corinthian helmet on the anvil side and a quadripartite incuse on the hammer side.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

Thanks for the likes! I really wish someone would comment on whether my attribution is correct.

 

The closest thing I could find was Lot 128 of this auction:

https://www.sixbid.com/browse.html?auction=3904&category=92756&page=2

 

Thanks for the help, Silverlock. The coin in that auction has a head, not just a helmet. The seller, in calling "Like Neandria" was, I think, comparing it to an obol found at http://www.wildwinds.com/coins/greece/troas/neandria/t.html, described as "Neandria, Troas. AR obol, 9 mm, 0.79 g. 6th century BC. Corinthian helmet left / Quadripartite incuse square. SNG Turkey 9, 664-665; SNG Kayhan 743 (as uncertain mint); SNG Turkey 1, 743 (ditto)." The helmet on my coin is simpler, but that may have been because the coin was earlier or because the smaller size dictated a simpler design. Or it could be from a completely different city.

 

edit - I really need to read decimal points carefully. Sorry.

 

0.8 would be too heavy but 0.08 seems impossibly light for the thick albeit small coin shown.

It does look like a helmet of some sort (not Corinthian). It's surely from somewhere in Asia Minor but I don't see anything that makes me think Neandria. Phokaia or uncertain Ionian, perhaps?

Double-check the weight and send pictures to the folks at https://www.asiaminorcoins.com/. They may be able to help you.

 

Thanks for the help! Unfortunately, I don't have an accurate scale. I am relying on the person who sold it to me for the weight. The longest length of the slightly oval coin is 5 mm. Most of the thickness is from the height of the helmet.

I will try to find access to a scale and send info to asiaminorcoins for help.

 

For $20 you really can't go wrong with one of these:
https://www.amazon.com/My-Weigh-Tri...8&qid=1545568850&sr=8-8&keywords=triton+scale

 

.08 grams is a mistake, it must be .8 gm. I have a very thin 5 mm coin that weighs .45 grams. One as thick as yours could easily be .8 grams.

See this, it appears to be the same type as your coin. It weighs .71 grams.

https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=749508

John

 

Here is a better preserved example:


mage: Fotografie Lübke & Wiedemann, Leonberg

https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=1515089

John

 

Thanks!

It's ordered.

 

Thanks, Theodosius! That is very helpful. I did a Google translate of the text on the first one, and it cleared up why the British Museum listed it as Macedonia, Scione, but now is attributed to Neandria.

I really appreciate all the time you have put into this!

Now I have to wait until my newly ordered scale comes in, about a week they say.

 

There are a hundred scale brands out there and I have been less that fully happy with three I have tried. Consistency is important. If I weigh a coin today at 1.23g. I expect it to be 1.23g. tomorrow and that was beyond the capability of one scale I had (and replaced). I fail to understand the virtue of a calibration system that uses 400g. as a calibration target when 99% of my coins are under 30g. and easily half under 5g. Does no one offer a similar scale targeted to obols rather than aes grave? To calibrate my current scales, I bought two 100g. weights (mine did not go to 400g.) but the pair differed in weight by .02g which would seem to defeat the purpose. No scale I see allows defining a weight other than the maximum and zero. Perhaps this is a featur that will not be found on the under $20 units.

 

Hey Neal, it took me 5 minutes at acsearch.com.

Go there, type in Neandria, scroll, bam!

Try it. The trick is to pick the right keywords, sometimes you have to try different things.

John

 

0.01g is a pretty small weight. If an object weighs, say, 0.015g, it could easily fluctuate between 0.01g and 0.02g. Seems like a pretty bad scale with a 100% difference from one day to the next, but really the difference could be a little as 0.001g or even less. In college I used scales that could measure that small a difference, but there were really expensive. You had to put the object inside a sealed enclosure to get an accurate measurement because a simple breeze could throw it off.

 

You're probably right about that, but I've been happy with this one - it's marketed as a kitchen scale but seems to be fairly accurate and consistent (the lightest coins I weigh are worn old dimes, which are in the 2.10 - 2.40+ gram range.
https://www.amazon.com/GDEALER-Digital-Kitchen-0-001oz-Stainless/dp/B01E6RE3A0/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1545619530&sr=8-3&keywords=gdealer digital pocket kitchen scale 0.001oz/0.01g 500g kitchen

 

I tried several scales and found this scale to be accurate compared to my lab balance:

Frankford Arsenal DS-750 Digital Reloading Scale with LCD Display for Reloading

Accurate to 0.01 gm and repeatable.

 

Yeah, my cheapie from Fry's required a 300 g weight, so I took a glass sample bottle and filled it with table salt until it was 300.000X grams on a balance that weighed to four places past the decimal.

 

Not a mistake. My scale arrived today. It weighs .08 g, including the dirt that remains in the incuse.

 

Don't sneeze...