I was just wondering if anyone had any tips or tricks on how to attribute 6-8 mm tiny silver coins? I just bought three of these coins. Two are about 8mm, and one is about 6mm. All three have owls on one side. One of the 8mm ones has a hippocamp, so I am thinking this one is Phoenician. The other two I don't have much to go on. I know Athens and ancient Israel made coins like this. Anyone else? I didn't even try to take photos since they are so stinking tiny, my pathetic skills would not work on them.
Yes sir. I will weigh them when I get home. I just bought these at a local shop at lunch who holds any ancient coins for me.
Yes, the owl/hippocamp sounds like a Phoenician fractional (Tyre). Looking forward to pictures of all three!
More like this courtesy of CNG: This one at CNG lists at 8mm and .6 grams, and of my group is the largest. On mine the obverse is better, but reverse not as clear as this one. The other two owls are oriented like Athenian owls. The other 8mm has AOE. Does this mean its Athenian? The other, the 6mm one, does not have AOE but looks like some writing in cursive below the owl's body and parallel to it. Would this one be Judaic? Man, they are just hard to see. Luckily I don't have my contacts in but my glasses. I have to take the glasses off to have any chance to see them.
The "owls" are probably Philistian. Something more like this: http://www.cngcoins.com/Coin.aspx?CoinID=280270
Sorry guys, but here is the best my cell phone would do. I took the pic with a smallish AE3 for scale. On the left if the hippocamp. The far right is the AOE owl, and the center is a weirder owl. All look better in person, this is a cruddy pic. The AE3 was the only other decent coin in the lot, the rest being low grade Roman crap. Still, $25 for the group wasn't bad.
I wish I could help but I am really uncomfortable separating Athens mint silver and the copies of them made in many places. It gets worse when we have small denominations in horrible condition. I've had this hemiobol size thing for 35 years and still have no more idea about it than when I got it. The legend is clear but style is masked by condition.
I toy with adding hektes to my collection...they are so beautiful but teeny-weeny! Maybe I'll pick one up and see how it fits in!
Well they weigh more than I thought. From the pic a few posts above, the far left hippocampus weighs .98 grams, the middle one without AOE is 1.00 grams, and the far right with AOE is .64 grams. Does that help? I tried taking more pics but they are so small it's hard to get something in focus.
