Mini Mysteries

It seems like a slow night on the board and I need some entertainment. I could post some nicer new coins but there are many of those threads. So... I'll post junk and ask questions with few answers.

We all have those mysterious coins that that are too ugly or unconventional for their own thread that we have questions about. This is a thread for those coins; a multiple topic thread of chaos.

To try to keep some structure, post questions with an identifier or title. When responding either quote that coin's post or begin your comment with the post's title.

Let's see your mini-mysteries!

Ok... here's a couple to start with, please add your own:

Coin 1 - Trajan As

So this is an As of Trajan. At some time it was carved with a 17 or VI and then also carved or stamped with 45. This is probably a question with no answers but... what's this? ...I bought it just because I was curious and it was cheap.

Coin 2 - Mauryan Drachm

I don't even know where to start here. I bought this simply to have one and it was cheap too. I've tried to research the punches but have gotten nowhere. Can anyone tell me about mine? 3.33 grams

 

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Although I got some useful and friendly hints here on CT, this Greek or Roman provincial coin still remains my main mini mystery:



Obv: veiled female head right, wearing wreath or diadem; characteristic bun below the veil at ca. 10 o'clock; mouth and part of the nose overstruck by countermark (bird?) at ca. 3–4 o'clock. Rest of Greek legend to left? Rev: Standing and slightly humped bull or oxen right (the animal's horns are much clearer in hand), line below. 18mm, 4.31g.

The stylistically most similar coins that I was able to find are from Thessalonica, Macedonia (pictures below, not my coins), but I am not convinced that this similarity is meaningful at all... The search for a reference continues, I guess.



@Orange Julius , concerning your Mauryan AR coin, do you know the Gupta Hardaker catalogue? I found it very helpful when attributing my two coins of this type. Since I had borrowed it from a public library and returned it long ago, I don't have it at hand, otherwise I would try to find your coin.

 

I have lots of very worn LRBs with practically the portrait and legends completely worn off, must have circulated for a very long time. So, lots of mystery coins - and they can't be all Falling Horseman types.

 

Haha, that’s what this thread is for! Some of those little coins that don’t deserve a whole thread. If you have some you’re curious about post them!

 

Wow what a cool story @lordmarcovan ! I encourage everyone to read that linked thread. Kudos to you for reuniting that family with a piece of their history!

 

Fun thread idea!
Is it just the picture or does your Trajan look like the 4 is a stamp and the other marks look carved in, presumably after the fact?

Anywho, I've always wondered why the "bankers mark" is an R? What does it stand for?? Was it placed in modern or ancient times???


Julius Caesar
49-48 BCE AR
denarius (18 mm, 3.43g, 2 h).
Military mint traveling with
Caesar. CAESAR in exergue,
elephant advancing right,
trampling on horned serpent /
Simpulum, sprinkler, axe
(surmounted by a dog's head),
and priest's hat. Crawford
443/1; HCRI 9; Sydenham
1006; RSC 49. Banker's mark on
obverse, porous. Near fine.
From the Expatriate Collection.

 

It stands for your name, right?

 

I was going to tell @Ryro the same!

I got this one as a Bankers Mark was stamped with my initial also... and, that it was Caesar's X Legion... I was even born on a 10th.

They knew THEN that I was capturing this coin... premonition...


RImp Marc Antony 32-31 BCE AR Legio X Equestris - Caesar Denarius B bankers mark Eagle Galley Standards

 

This one has the "R" like your JC @Ryro


And like @Alegandron, this one is marked with my last initial (JWH), but I wasn't born on the 11th.

 

I've tried many times to figure this one out...



What is IIZ?

 

As is typical, I have no answers, only questions. The second/bottom coin below is a Constans "barbarian and hut" centenionalis from Siscia; the photo is @maridvnvm's; please pardon the theft. The first/top coin is mine. Is my coin a very good unofficial / barbarous coin, or did the Siscia procurator monetae let Kevin the intern have a crack at die engraving that day?

BTW, my coin is 2.45 g. A bit on the light side for these, which are usually 3.5-4.5 g. I personally now think it's unofficial.

 

It is “GH 575”. I'm fairly sure it is the penultimate imperial issue of Taxila mint - before it fell into rebel hands.

Symbols, more details and the argument for that attribution is here:

https://www.academia.edu/4645738/Late_Indian_Punchmarked_Coins_in_the_Mir_Zakah_II_Hoard

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The "1745" piece tempts to speculation. Is it US found - as lordmarcovan speculates? As I best recall the educated Gaelic elites tended to flee Scotland voluntarily, and to the US, rather directly in the wake of the '45 (Culloden). Unlike the greater mass of the West Scottish population who were cleared out to make way for sheep, especially after 1815, and primarily went to Canada.

Rob T

 

How about taking a crack at my Owl?

 

These are awesome! I received one from my secret Saturn (though I still have not figured out who they are???).
Anyway, here's mine with the description I found with the help of ac search and wild winds.

Mysia (van Alfen type 2) Kingdom of Pergamon

Philetairus, 282-263 BC Bronze, with countermark: owl. Head of Athena with Attic Helmet / Serpent of Asclepius. SNG BN 1650 ff. 2.99 g .; Nice

 

Not a coin comment really, but my maternal great-grandmother was a Baird, part of the Scottish Baird immigrants who settled Bardstown (“Bairdstown”) Kentucky, near Louisville. Her great-grandfather James Baird came to America in 1782 in a harrowing seven-week voyage that left him so weak he had to be carried from the boat. I can’t connect the dots perfectly, but after Culloden, because of their Jacobite sympathies, the Bairds had their ancestral lands in Auchmedden stripped from them. The Baird fortunes then waned—hence a number of them immigrated to America, including my ggggg-grandfather. The upshot: A continent and two centuries away, the effects of Culloden can still be felt.