I recently acquired this coin as it appeared well struck with a nice old cabinet patina. It weighs in at 17.0 grams. The folder says "Lifetime Issue" and from Asia minor mint. The obverse shows what appears to be a tiny janiform mark, possibly a control mark. I admit to knowing not that much about these issues so I am asking members who are more well versed in this coinage, how can the coin be ascertained to be a lifetime issue? What indicates that it is from an Eastern mint rather than, say Macedonia itself? Thanks for any other information you can tell me or direct me to.
It looks quite a bit like mine. The control symbol is a Janiform vase. Yours is denfitely nicer than mine. Kings of Macedon, Alexander III ‘the Great' (336-323 BC). AR Tetradrachm (26mm, 17.00g, 9h). Amphipolis, c. 332-326 BC. Obv: Head of Herakles r., wearing lion skin. Rev: Zeus Aëtophoros seated l.; janiform vase in l. field. Price 6; Troxell, Studies, Issue A3. Some roughness, VF Saint Paul Antiques Auction 2 Lot 10, March 18, 2017.
The open legs on Zeus is usually a sign of lifetime issue, though not always. I'll leave the answer to more knowledgeable members, but I do want to congratulate you on such a pretty coin. She's a real beauty.
I took those images in artificial light but with the sun out now I decided to take some again in natural light to get the toning more in line with its actual appearance.
Here is the Pella database link for the type: http://numismatics.org/pella/id/price.6 I don't have Price's book, but as this coin is type #6 it must be an early, lifetime issue.
Yikes, a lot of different versions. Does a Price Type 6 always come from the mint of Amphipolis? Looking at my coin at this magnification it looks like the ear is squashed or damage in some way.
The link gives almost 48 specimens to look at from museum collections. Look for die matches. Pella is great for finding them. It is believed that all examples with the same control mark come from the same mint (not counting fourrees and Celtic imitations, if any). Pella gives the mint for the janiform vase as "Amphipolis (uncertain)". I don't know how the mint was determined. Find spots? Post this coin on the Janiform thread, folks will want to see it.
What you have is one of the earliest of the Alexander III issues from the mint of Amphipolis It was likely struck in 332 B.C. Its main claim to being among the earliest issues is that it shares a control mark with a tetradrachm issue minted in the name of Philip II (one of the Zeus / Jockey types ) Troxell's Group A to D are considered to be lifetime issues from this mint. However the Group E's are now thought to be posthumous Tetradrachm in the name and types of Philip II 336 -329 B.C. Kantharos symbol which is shared with Alexander III issue B 1
It is a beauty. Coins of Alexander the Great check all the boxes: history, old, big, silver, beautiful. You gotta love them!
Price assigns it to Macedonia 'Amphipolis', meaning that the actual mint city is uncertain, though there are always new studies being done on the series and I would not be surprised to see it assigned to somewhere else (or even a later king). Aside from your specific type, it only appears on a drachm (Price 7). Price takes four pages to explain the reasoning behind the attribution, but that more reading and summarizing I have time for tonight.
We each must make a decision as to how much our resources to assign to any particular part of our hobby. For those who choose Alexander the Great as their prime focus, the Price book (a big, big book) covers the subject in great depth and points out that not everything is known with certainty. Ancient coins may not be a great subject for those who require everything to be known with absolute certainty. I am not a specialist in the coins of Alexander but enjoy knowing tidbits of the details like 'lifetime' and mint names but the space available in my head has been designated for other specialties that may not be known as well as Price knew Alexander. I know I will not be advancing the knowledge base of these coins. I did not see the need to buy the book. How do we each decide on what interests us enough to buy the book (if one exists for your subject) or to try to figure out what we can given the materials available (books, periodicals, online information and the coins themselves). Do we prefer a well studied subject with a definitive book or one that has vastly more questions than answers? Do we specialize in more or less one coin? There are many single coins, certainly including Alexander tetradrachms, that can be more than one person might be able to study fully considering that that 'one' coin is actually several thousand varieties each with a story to tell. I wonder how many people who did buy the Price book actually read it and tried to see the overall 'Big Picture' of the subject. Did most of us just use it to look up and assign a number to the few examples in our possession? How many not only read the book for information but tried to follow the discussion and, perhaps find fallacies in the decisions presented? That sums up my level of ability and interest in 95% of the specialties that mean so much to other collectors. Being a general collector and knowing 1% about 100 subjects is easier for me than knowing anything close to 100% about one.
Thanks a lot for this information and site and I will post the coin in the other thread. That about sums up my coin collecting as well. I bought this coin because it had eye appeal to me. It cost only a little more than the average price on the coin store web sites and the advantage was that I could see and have it in hand before making the decision to purchase. What drives my interest is eye appeal and this coin had it. I wonder from what some have written if this coin might have a greater than average value if it is, indeed, an early version of this coin. Well, whether it is or not I just like looking at it, including what appears to be a chewed on ear.
