It's old, it's ugly and it's mine - Ramchitak

Ever since I branched out and started collecting old coins that were neither Greek nor Roman, I had been wanting one of these but they tend to sell for a great deal more than I am willing to pay. This one was sufficiently poor that I was able to buy it.

Major civilizations in Europe and China were connected by a trade route through Central Asia called the 'Silk Road'. Some stops along the way issued coins that look in the spirit of Western coinage but some places copied Chinese cash type coins but used the local script. There were several places and dates. For my purpose it made little difference which ruler or place would represent the genre. This was identified as Ramchitak of Samarkand (Western Soghd) in what is now Uzbekistan from c.700 AD. The script reads R'mcytk Byy. My reverse is worn slick but once had a weak pair of omega shaped figures. At 19mm it is smaller than most Chinese cash. I found few illustrated online with considerable variation of opinions as to which side is 'up'. I don't see myself becoming a specialist in these but I felt the need for one for my general 'World' collection. Does anyone else have similar coins to share?

 

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Very cool. I have a bunch of cash coins for China, Annam, Korea, and Japan, but I've never seen or even heard of one of these before.

 

it is old, it is ugly, but its still awesome. Congrats.

 

I myself cant stand Chinese cash coins. I just find them boring but this one is pretty interesting.

What would a "nice" example look like by chance?

 

I found this on vcoins:

http://www.vcoins.com/ancient/ancientcoinscanada/store/viewItem.asp?idProduct=11909

 

Price is scary too but I actually think that and dougs are pretty neat. Never seen coins like these before.

 

Certainly the VCoins example is much nicer. We each may decide if it is six times nicer. I believe it is but I rarely spend anything approaching that much per coin. Compared to most ancient collectors, I collect garbage. We each can decide if a collection is better containing 1000 $50 coins, 100 $500 coins or 10 $5000 coins. I suppose there is someone out there with 10,000 $5 coins or 100,000 50 cent coins so I'm not the worst garbage collector around.

 

If you paid 1/6 the price I think yours is waaaaaaaaaaay better. I'd be really happy to have a coin like yours.