Two New Budget Coins

Ok, I decided to get a coin which turned into two coins. Thankfully the two remain within a $22 budget including shipping. These are off my normal collecting strategy but I decided I wanted something different for a change. I just ordered them so who knows when I shall receive.



Nezak Huns, Sri Samanta Deva Shahi Kings of Kabul and Ghandara AR Drachm

OBVERSE: Sri Samanta Deva in Sarada script. Bull Nandi recumbent left, Tamgha on hindquarters.
REVERSE: Horseman riding right holding banner.
17mm - 3.3 grams
Mitchiner ACW 1585 - 1588
Kabul mint , 850-970 AD



Kushan Empire Kanishka I Drachm 127-152 AD

OBVERSE: King standing left, altar in front

REVERSE: Mao standing head left.

18mm - 4.4 grams

 

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Nice, prefer the top of course. Still dont own an example either. Havent found the right one thats called me, lol. Reverse on the second coin is nice.

 

Nice coins, Gil! Here's my one and only jital of the Nezak Huns, but probably not my last. I like these little silvers...

 

Very nice. I've been wanting one of those Nezak Hun jitals for quite awhile but never bit the bullet until today. They are some odd but nice looking coins.

 

Cool additions.

 

Nice newps Gil.

 

Nice aquisitions !
Your Bull and Horseman is a Tye#21 type. This is somewhat scarcer than the common Tye#14 type. It is distinguished by the more naturalistic shape of the head of the rider and the double colon : after the legend which actually makes it read Samanta Devah. (John Anthony's coin is a Spalapati Deva type.)
On your Kushan coin the deity does not seem to be Mao, but it is the two armed version of Shiva. This is also supported by the inscription at the right which reads "OHPO", for Oesho, one of the names of Shiva. This is Mao:

 

I really like your first example ... but man, I really feel like picking-off the golden-gunk that's on the green Kushan coin!! (it looks "fresh")



Congrats, Gil-galad ... beauty is in the eye of the beholder, my friend!

Oh, I have a cool Kushan coin to toss into your thread ...

INDIA, Kushan: Vima Kadphises
AE tetradrachm
circa 112-127 AD
Diameter: 28 mm
Weight: 16.88 grams
Obverse: King standing facing, sacrificing at altar left, tamgha and club in right field, Greek legend around: BACIΛEVC BACIΛEWN CWTHP MEΓAC OOhMO KAΔΦICHC
Reverse: Oesho (Siva) standing facing, Bull Nandi behind, nandipada at left, Kharoshthi legend around: maharajasa rajadirajasa sarvaloga isvarasa mahisvarasa vima kathphishasa tratara

 

nice one GG, a bull and horseman jital is a must have. it took me about a year to find this budget coin that floated my boat.

 

chrsmat71's coin is also a nice example of an upgrade model you don't see every day. Research it and find the ID.

 

And to add to the variety of the Bull and Horseman coins; here's one with a bull that could have featured in the Muppet Show.

 

A big thanks for the information. Is there a online source for this information about the Horseman Jitals other than Doug Smith's page? Or do you have some of the reference books for the Jitals?

There is one thing that is confusing me. I've been reading about the Shahi kings but not much is mentioned about the Nezak Huns. How are the Nezak huns connected to these coins and the Shahi kings? Does anyone know. Doug does not mention this on his site either.

And oh yeah, there are lots of these coins at the VCoins store that I ordered this coin from. Around about 50 of them, I think.

 

I do not know the origin of calling the Shahi kings Nezak Huns and whether it is appropriate or not.

Print works:
Tye, Robert, Jitals required reading
Deyell, John, Living without Silver almost as necessary and considerably more text
MacDowell, David W., "The Shahis of Kabul and Gandhara" good article with plates of major type (plaster casts) - in Numismatic Chronicle for 1968 pages 189-224

My history: I found a dealer at a show with a bag full at $5 each. I bought most of the nice ones that were in any way that I could see different. Finding information on them has cost me a lot more than the coins. Most people look down on them but I see dealers trying to sell them for more now than just a few years ago. Why?

 

The Vcoins seller makes some ID mistakes. I bought one of them. Many of these coins are missing details needed to ID but some are fine and the same price so I guess $5 has become $22 now. Why some are cheaper, I do not know.

 

The Vcoins lot, all attributed as Samanta deva, seemed even to contain some early Tye#3 Spalapati Deva specimen, though not very nice.

The Hindu Shahi of Kabul definitely are not Nezak !
History in short (From memory, Medoraman may improve me here ) :
- The Nezak Huns took over power in the Kabul region from the Alchon Huns somewhere in the 6th century AD.
- Early 7th century these were displaced by the Turk Shahi, of which Sahi Tigin is the best known.
- The last of the Turk Shahi was Lagaturman. According to Arab historian Albiruni he was thrown from the throne by his Brahmin minister Kallar. Kallar was supposedly the founding father of the Hindu Kabul Shahi dynasty. This must have been around the beginning of the 9th century.
- At the end of the 9th century the hindu shahi lost Kabul to the Muslim invaders and had to move their power base east, where they stayed in power for another century.

Another still nice reference work on these coins is the 1976 Thesis of Abdur Rehman. I downloaded this once from the website of an Australian University. But can't find the exact web address right now.

 

Sri Samanta Deva Shahi Kings of Kabul and Ghandara AR Jital, Kabul mint, 850-970 AD, 3.3g, 17mm

OBV: Sri Samanta Deva "Honorable Chief Commander" in Sarada script. Bull Nandi recumbent left, Tamgha on hindquarters.

REV: Horseman riding right holding banner.

REF: Tye #21

I'm working on the final attribution description now. I have omitted the reference for now because I'm not sure if it's correct. Mitchiner ACW 1585 - 1588

Thanks a lot you guys, THCoins, Doug for the help so far. I'm going to be working on the description for the Kushan coin next. I'd appreciate it if you guys could look at my attribution to see if I have it right.

I also looked for the thesis of Abdur Rehman but could not find it. Seems like there are lots of people and places with that name.

 

I would not use Mitchiner any more for these types. Tye is the de-facto standard.
For Rehman, try this:
https://digitalcollections.anu.edu.au/bitstream/1885/11229/1/Rehman_A_1976.pdf

 

Mitchiner ACW 1585 - 1588 is the correct listing for Samanta Deva. It seems fashionable to put down the value of Mitchiner's massive volumes (Ancient, Non-Islamic and Islamic) but I believe their errors and shortcomings are offset by the huge resource of photos of actual coins that you will be hard pressed to find elsewhere and ID's that will at least get you close. The Shahi page has four rows of coins with little separation beyond the most basic. 1585-1588 shows four examples of Samanta Deva while earlier rows cover Spalapati Dave and Khudarayaka with a little mention on the theories of these issues. IMHO, people who think they have the complete and irrefutable details on these coins have more self confidence than they do scholarship. Showing a set of four variants of these imperfect coins (and Mitchiner's examples are more typical than selective) does about as much as the space allows. Lets remember that Mitchiner is more like Sear's one/two volume books which also try to cover way more than can be fit into a reasonable sized volume. Do you have any idea how many coins were produced in Asia and how difficult it would be to decipher their huge variety? Like all books, Mitchiner needs to be read critically but I am glad to have the two I have. I do not have the Islamic volume and long ago decided that I'll leave reading them to people who find them attractive. I don't.

Having defended him let me add that the real title of Mitchiner's books is Oriental Coins and their Values. Sear included, I believe anyone who tries to write a book with "and their values" in the title deserves to be beaten up by critics. Mitchiner, at least, put his prices in a separate appendix at the back so they are easy to ignore. The main value I see in the books is the possibility of my quoting you a number and you being able to see a few coins that are at least remotely similar to what I was quoting. Tye has very, very nice line drawings of idealized coins that are composites of all the specimens he has seen. They are better than Mitchiner's photos in so many ways except, of course, that they are not photos and do not exist in the real world. There is a place for both.

 

Am i being attacked here ? If so, not neccesary.
I very much respect the person and work of M. Mitchiner. We disagree apparently on the utility of referring to these coins. I think adding M.1585-88 on the 2x2 doesn't help me a bit further when i want to lookup further information on these coins than just writing "Samanta Deva". Therefore i prefer the more specific Tye classification.

"Tye has very, very nice line drawings of idealized coins that are composites of all the specimens he has seen."
This statement is incorrect. The illustrations in the book "Jitals" are of selected but actually existing coins, though idealizations may have been made in generating the line drawings.

 

Rehman is a PhD thesis with a long section on coins. If reading the whole thing is beyond your interest, the pdf pages 207-232 (different from the index pages in the table of contents) can be printed out and read more easily for those of us who prefer paper in hand.

I'm sorry you chose to take my comment as an attack. I can not see how the statement 'not use Mitchiner any more' is in any way appropriate. Faulting the one page in Mitchiner for not being 'Tye' quality is faulting apples for not being oranges. Mitchiner is a catalog of very general nature and not the specialized work that Tye attempted. I stand by my comparison with Sear. Mitchiner is a general overview of ten thousand specialties not an obsolete work not to be used 'any more'. Covered in Rehman level text with appropriate added plates, Mitchiner would be several thousand volumes rather than three.

I stand corrected on Tye's drawing not being individual coins but I will have trouble accepting these drawings without having seen photos of the coins on which they were based. What part is 'idealization' and what part is actually there? I assumed these idealizations were assumptions based on other coins. I would love to see photos of the jital examples Tye shows in his book Early World Coins.