Picked up this coin on ebay...

My copy of Travaini’s book just arrived in the mail today! I’m still figuring it out, but I can look up the reference if you want

 

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That would be awesome, thanks Fitz!!

 

So... Travaini appears to be an excellent study, but a badly organized catalogue (as best I can tell, as I am working with some rusty Italian). Images of coin types are provided on plates in the back, and they appear to be in chronological order, but the text itself covers coins by metal, then chronology (sometimes). The imitation anonymous folles I would then expect to be either with the section on copper/bronze coins, or in the section for the period before the Normans, but I cannot find any corresponding entries to the numbers in the images which appear to be the imitation folles (or perhaps they are images of legitimate Byzantine folles - I can't find the text, and am not knowledgable enough in the folles to know just by looking at them). So I am afraid I may be no help until I can actually read this book cover to cover.

I took a look through MEC 14 for giggles, and it kind of looks like #78 attributed to Robert Guiscard - but the reverse doesn't match up perfectly, and neither does weight. But for an imitation, who knows what variables may exist?

 

Dang, I'm trying to geet out the door (this is my Friday), but I have another reference, not as good as Travaini, and have an example very much along the lines of yours, and attributed the same. Probably posted it at some point. You're cordially welcome to use the 'conversation' function to remind me about this ...or just try a search here for 'Robert Guiscard.'
(Edit: ) Okay, it's not panic time yet. My reference (Andrea, 2015) cites Travaini 1995 no. 34 and 36 (two variants on the same motif and legend). Also MEC 14 no. 75-82. The low weight would suggest yours is the real deal.
(Edit Two: ) Kudos to @FitzNigel for the MEC, and for pointing out the issue of variants, likely including other (Norman) authorities. The Norman series started out pretty much in complete chaos.
(Final edit: ) Yipes! This Is the thread I was yammering about! Doh....

 

Quant.Greek has some very interesting information. I knew there were provincial mints (allegedly, or has that changed?) but I didn't know that the Normans imitated the coins.

I've been thinking of getting into the series. Which is the enormous flan one - class B? The majority of my anonymous series come from 90s buys of allen Berman's 'junk box' coins (the 4 for 20 or whatever it was), which aren't bad as junk boxes go. They're comparable to 20-40 buck coins on vcoins.

I may even have contemporary imitations and not know it..

 

I have the second / 2016 edition of Travaini. I didn’t think the numbers changed as it appears a reprint of the first edition with a supplement added to the front, but number 36 is a Tari in mine, so perhaps I’m wrong. Here’s the plate with 34 - Unfortunately there seems to be a printing error (which I am resigned to live with due to the hassle and long shipping time to get the book… but 34a and the reverse of 32b seem to be the only casualties)

 

Thanks, @FitzNigel, for all that additional info! Yes, I imagined Travaini might be a bit difficult to navigate without Italian, no worries. Maybe I'll write to her directly. It looks to me like 32a is an overstrike, where the undertype obverse looks a bit like mine. There's some similarity with 34b as well. I'd love to see the plate of MEC 78 - though I should probably buy that volume, I've certainly been tempted before!

I'm also interested in the taris, since I have an imitation of a Sicily mint Fatimid quarter dinar (imitating al-'Aziz, late 10th century), probably produced in Italy:


I'd love to see your similar follaro, @+VGO.DVCKS, if you have a photo now. I agree the low weight is significant. (And also about the chaos! There are few specimens of many types.) My understanding is the lower weight coins tend to put them earlier, perhaps even leaking into Gisulfo's reign at Salerno.

 

I’ve got you

 

Many thanks, @Severus Alexander, for the vote of confidence! Yes, it took half an afternoon (interminable technical issues), but here are the pics of my stuff. The follaro is first --nothing to write home about-- along with my c. 10th /11th-c. Apulian imitative tari /fractional dinar, and an Islamic, but (at that distance from Egypt) only nominally Fatimid one of Sicily, more nearly contemporaneous to Robert Guiscard. (Both posted here, with more complete attribution: https://www.cointalk.com/threads/medieval-monday.366691/page-23#post-5406053)




Two terrific references on Robert Guiscard are Loud's biography, The Age of Robert Guiscard (2000), and his more numismaticocentric article, "Coinage, Wealth and Plunder in the Age of Robert Guiscard," in the English Historical Review. Available in .pdf here: file:///I:/COINS,%20SICILY,%20ROBERT%20GUISCARD%20ARTICLE.pdf
...Or, Maybe Not. And the score is, VGO DUX zero; antiquated machinery, 9 and a half. Anyway, English Historical Review, v. 114 (Sept. 1999), pp. 815-845.

 

Thanks for going to all that trouble, @+VGO.DVCKS! I just got around to reading the very interesting Loud article. Here, for others, is a link that should work: https://www.jstor.org/stable/580547

I'll write to Travaini about my new follaro and let you know if I hear back from her.

 

Interesting - I’ve read a lot of Loud’s work before and didn’t realize he wrote anything on coins…. I look forward to reading it this weekend!

 

Many thanks, @Severus Alexander, for the ongoing vote of confidence, and the good link!!!! ...I cheated, and xeroxed the article from the one library in range that had it. Pretty sure I first saw a citation in Loud's biography. (Along with a dying desktop, I don't have enough shelf space to minimize the attendant chaos where the books are concerned. I've already lost track of which pile the biography is in. ...Whine, Snivel.)