Hello folks, its been a while since I posted here. I was going through my collection and weighed my Indo Greek antimachus II drachm. It came up to be 1.53g, while in catalogues its at around 2.3g The look doesnt seem off to me, but the weight has bothered me a bit. Have a look.
While I am not a specialist in this series, the coin has a look of having been scrubbed in cleaning which might cause some weight loss. The problem is that such scrubbing can remove dirt or also remove signs of fakery. The detail I see in the face of Nike and the crispness of the letters makes me tend to accept the coin as genuine but my confidence in the matter is not by any means certain. It might help to know any background on the coin. For example, a coin bought from a metal detectorist of from a large find commercially processed in recent years might be expected to have been poorly cleaned than one found years ago before some of our modern cleaning techniques were common. I hope you will keep us posted on what you learn from specialists but my first step would be to research as many of the type as you can find and see just how unusual the weight really is. My coin below is 2.0g but different in too many ways to be of any help . It is easier to find sales listings for the finest coins of common types than for the average grade ones so I would be able to accept some weight loss as normal. Still, yours seems quite light. Sorry to be of no help.
Coins from that area of the world, (one of my main specialties), have been deposited into some pretty harsh soil. Copper and silver frequently will get leeched in the soil, and underweight examples are very common. From this area of the world, weight can be a factor, but underweights are common and attention to style is all the more important.
I know very little about coins from this part of the world, but a while back I got a silver drachm of Hermaios that, like another one I had, seemed very light. Apparently these were contemporary imitations by "invading nomads", and the weights are all over the place. This one's a little finer style than many of them, so maybe it is an original? The surfaces look as if they suffered from nasty soil and/or cleaning which probably reduced the weight. CoinIndia is the site I used. Indo-Greek Drachm Hermaios (c. 90-70 B.C.) Bare-headed, diademed bust rt., BAΣIΛEΩΣ ΣΩTHPOΣ EPMAIOY, Zeus enthroned left, sceptre in left hand & bestowing blessing w. rt. hand, Kharoshthi legend: maharajasa tratarasa heramayasa. (1.76 grams / 15 mm) MIG 415f; Bop 11L. Attribution Notes: Attribution based on CoinIndia example with this monogram reverse. "The vast majority of coins in the name of Hermaios, which are available in large quantities, were imitations of that king's coins by invading nomads..." (CoinIndia.com)
The "invading nomads" they would be referring to would be the Scythians. The Indo-Scythians a little later made the excellent tetradrachms of Azes, Azilices, etc. Unfortunately for them, they were followed by the Kushans fairly soon afterwards.
Most Indo-Greek and Indo-Scythian silver coins in the market today come from an enormous hoard of hundreds of thousands of coins found in a well in Afghanistan. Some porosity due to leeching is not uncommon in addition to normal weight variation. https://www.thehindu.com/features/friday-review/coin-crusader/article7662522.ece/amp/
Thanks for the responses guys! Puts my mind at ease. The guy I got it off does metal detecting but also buys from other sources aswell, so its pretty mixed. Thanks, as always love reading your replies! Neat coin you got aswell. This one is special as the king decided to skip his bust which was odd for the time. That makes sense, thanks! Lovely! Hermaios drachms are next on my acquisition list for the IndoGreeks. Imagine being the one to find such a hoard haha.
The article points to the typical museum attitude that the only proper disposal of 'three tonnes' of coins is storage in a vault never to be seen. Yes it would be nice to have the hoard studied properly but part of such a study would need to include distribution of the leftovers after the significant information was gained. Returned to a museum, I would expect a future government to decide it cost too much to preserve the coins and the taking melt value of so much silver 'ore' was the best answer.
This one grammer of menander from coinindia.com is also interesting. They do mention the leeching in the water. So can one attribute low weight Indo greeks to the mir zakah hoard? Though i am guessing due to the large number found almost all should be from there.
