Hey guys. I'm having a heck of a time getting this one figured out. It reminds me greatly of Russian wire money... but it is bronze. I read that there is some bronze wire money out there... but so far have been unable to identify this coin. Any help would be appreciated!
Matt, to you, does the writing look Greek, Roman/Latin, or something else? "Novao" is Bosnian for "ister", which can mean "The Danube river. Ister is its old Thracian and Greek name." (Probably not, but hey...) and of course, if it says "Nova", then Latin for "new". But you probably already knew that.
I believe the top line reads Pulo, a denomination of copper wires, and the second is Moscow. I don't know enough about these to be dangerous. While this is not one of them, I like the really crude, ugly coppers of the 'Copper Riot' when the government decided they did not need to put silver in the silver coins. It seems this was a hasty decision. I don't generally collect coins as new as the 1660's but wires don't look offensively modern. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copper_Riot
Can't really help you i.d. it...perhaps others who are more familiar with Russian stuff could. But it seems it says Pavlo Mockobckoi on this (the first letter is the russian p). I think it strange it has a v in Pavlo instead of a b like it does on Mockobckoi. There wasn't a Pavlo (ruler) in Russia who could have put this out prior to Peter the Great, for this to be a 'real' wire money. Because it seems Peter was the one who abolished actual wire money, and wire money was silver before that. But there was a ruler of Russia named Paul (Pavel, anglicised) a son of Peter, ruling for 5 years from 1796-1801. This is after Peter's reign, so there should be no official wire money from this time, but could this be some sort of copy-cat type put out contemporaneous to this? Or a later piece to imitate the wire money. That might explain why it is in bronze and not silver. But I don't know for sure. Just an idea to toss out.
This one looks similar but not quite...? http://amadiocoins.com/catalog/coin/6490 or Tver' Pulo prince Ivan Ivanovich the Young http://www.omnicoin.com/viewcoin/947052 or PSKOV (REPUBLIC)~AE Pulo 1470-1530 http://www.omnicoin.com/viewcoin/1022210
This? http://russiancoins.narod.ru/ecm/ecm1.htm Best guess: http://www.chicagocoinclub.org/projects/PiN/ecm.html #8 or #9 Moscow (Ae Pulo) (15th Century)
lots of cool coin there i didn't know about. i haven't seen on the the OP before either, with eagle obverse.
Now that the coin dilemma is solved... Hister / `Ister... Is that possibly what Nostradamus meant when all the conspiracy theorists assumed he was saying Hitler? He was really talking about the Danube River???
http://www.calgarycoin.com/reference/peterwiremoney/peterwiremoney.htm Compare the above link's image of the entire die reverse as pieced together from 10 coins of Peter I (the last to issue these). I believe yours is not bad for these. It certainly is better than mine!
Thanks, Doug! I hadn't stumbled on that web page. Looks like I have part of "Prince", most of "Peter" and a chunk of "Alekseevich" plus some "all" and a start of "Russia". Is there another site that shows more of what the other side should look like? I believe I have the most central part, the figure on horseback. My figure looks different from yours, too. Rob
The obverse of the silver kopecks was pretty standard showing a rider with downward spear. Often there is a letter or monogram under the horse and the reverse legends separate out the rulers but rarely are all on flan. Peter's are often worse than most. Your example is better than most. The one of Mikhail Fedorovich below has as much obverse as any I have. I am no expert, own very few and know no really good website. There are other denominations from earlier rulers most commonly the denga (half kopeck) showing a horseman with a sword popular from the reign of Ivan the Terrible. Dies for these were mechanically reproduced so it is common to find what appear to be die duplicates using ancient standards. When I first learned this, I was fearing that such coins were fakes made from copy dies but it is apparently normal for these.
Thanks again, Doug. And my apologies to you, Matt, if this was "threadjacking". My intent was to enhance the thread as well as get info for myself. Rob
Yes he was referring to the Hister (Ister) river and so people jumped all over that "similarity". James Randi wrote an entire book ripping the Nostradamus thing to shreds, if you want a good read.
