I have this Greek coin that was sold to me as Apollonia Pontica - Thrace, but I am unable to 'reference' it, or even find any coin like it. Most of the 'Anchor coins have Medusa (or Gorgon) on them, but this coin has a figure on the obverse (?). Can you help me, please? (Yes, TIF, I have checked Thrace. Also CNG, Wildwinds, and several other references as well.) Ae 17 mm., 3.9 gm. (It is better in hand, but these are the best photos I can do.)
I don't recognize it but that anchor certainly looks like Apollonia Pontika. Unless someone else comes up with a reference, the next step would be to look through relevant online reference books. When faced with such a puzzle, I go to CNG, find a coin I think is similar or possibly related (in this case, various unusual types of Apollonia Pontika bronzes), and see which reference CNG cites. The reference will be abbreviated (in the example I'm using the abbreviation is "Imhoof-Blumer, MG pg. 237, 47") ; then go to the Bibliography tab on CNG's website and find the full title of the book (F. Imhoof-Blumer. Monnaies Grecques. Paris. 1883.) --> highlight/right-click/copy and drop into a Google Search, hope for a full text online hit (here's one of this book; I have not browsed it to see if your coin is there). Foreign language books can be daunting but it is still possible to use them if you don't read that language. Pick a few key words for your coin, translate to the appropriate language, and use that to help search the text. If you find a possible hit, copy that entire portion of text and see what Google Translate says (often not very accurate but sometimes good enough). Picture plates of course are a universal language . Good luck Edit: the book I linked is not the CNG source cited, it is an earlier and less comprehensive work by Imhoof-Blumer. I'm sure the full book is online somewhere and will post it when I find it. I vaguely recall that Dane (of Catbikes and Wildwinds) translated an Imhoof-Blumer book or books to English. I'll see if I can find that too.
Thank-you, TIF. Following your 'directions', the best I could do was :- Apollonia Pontika, Thrace. Circa 3rd-2nd Century BC. AE 20mm (5.16 gm). Obv: Apollo seated left on omphalos, holding bow. Rev: MYS, Anchor with crayfish and upturned A on either side. Imhoof-Blumer, Monnaies Grecques 47; cf. SNG BM Black Sea 188 (magistrate). Good VF, dark green-brown patina. Very rare. 73, Lot: 12. Estimate $150. Sold for $205. Ex Classical Numismatic Group 60 (22 May 2002), lot 416. Used with permission of CNG coins, www.cngcoins.com, Jan. 2011 apollonia_pontica_Imhoof_47.txt But, this reference refers to SNG BM Black Sea 188, and I think that my coin may be SNG BM Black Sea 190, but without the reference material I am a bit 'stumped'.
Dane doesn't have a translation of this book. Here's a site which has the full text in .pdf available for free download.
I didn't mean that the example coin I used for a reference was your exact coin, only that you might be able to find your coin in the same reference book as that coin. Yours is not the example coin because the obverse is different.
I think I've done your homework for you... Using the full-text book I linked two posts above, here's a screen shot of the relevant page. Note that the CNG coin I used is coin #47 on p. 237. I think your coin is #48. Yours weighs a little more but it looks like a strong possibility. Using Google Translate + some additional interpretation, #48 is an AE, 15 mm, 2.95 gm, and the description is: Apollo (?) standing facing, naked, head turned left, holding long branch in right hand. Reverse: Anchor; at left, A; (not sure how to translate the rest of the reverse but it seems to describe elements found in the reverse fields) There is a footnote about coin #48: Translation, from Google Translate: Other bronzes probably date from the time of Alexander's successors, and No. 48, the only one that shows a beaded circle appears to have been struck shortly before the destruction of Astakos (280 BC.) It represents the last coinage of the city, and thus contributes to confirm our current allocation to the type of anchor. There are introductory paragraphs a few pages before this section. I did not try to translate that since typing the French words into Google Translate is a PITA. So... I'd tentatively attribute your coin as follows: THRACE, Apollonia Pontika early 3rd century BCE Æ 17mm, 3.9 gm Obv: Apollo (?) standing facing, naked, head turned left, holding long branch in right hand Rev: Anchor; at left, A [and more] Ref: Imhoof-Blumer, MG pg. 237, 48 Maybe @Ardatirion will chime in and tell me if I'm on the right track. Maybe @Cucumbor can add accuracy to the translations. I'm confused by Imhoof-Blumer's listing of these coins as being from Astakos. Maybe that's another name for Apollonia Pontika? If not, perhaps later scholarship reassigned all of these coins to Apollonia Pontika. I'd research it further but that's as much time and energy as I can devote to this today.
I bow with gratitude and appreciation. The reference to 'Astakos' is confusing, as is a reference I came across to 'Sergiopolis':- Resafa, known in Roman times as Sergiopolis and briefly as Anastasiopolis, was a city located in the Roman province of Euphratensis, in modern-day Syria. It is an archaeological site situated south-west of the city of Ar Raqqah and the Euphrates.(Wikipedia) Past my bed-time, now, but many, many thank-yous for your help on this one. Tomorrow.
Thanks for checking, Q I found some additional information about the coin and the reassignment to Apollonia Pontika. Imhoof-Blumer's monograph was published in 1883. Barclay Head's Historia Nvmorvm, published in 1911, also lists Topcat's coin (p. 277) and on p. 278 mentions the reassignment from Astakos: At the bottom of page 277 is the description of what may be Topcat's coin: Circ. B. C. 300 and later. Apollo standing facing, holding long branch and bow / Anchor with A ... AE Size 55 [Note that weights in this book are stated in grains; 55 grains = 3.5 gm so that fits nicely.] From page 278: The above-described coins, hitherto conjecturally attributed to various cities, Abydus, Astacus, or Apollonia ad Rhyndacum, have been at last identified by Tacchella (R. N., 1898, 210) as the coinage of the Pontic Apollonia (cf. Zeit. f. Num, xv 38). Since I'm digging, I'll also look for the references cited by Head .
It's amazing how much I can get done in Coinland while avoiding housework Here's the reference cited by Head: Tacchella, D., “Monnaies autonomes d’Apollonia de Thrace”, Revue Numismatique (1898) p. 210-218. It is available for viewing in its entirety here. I started typing the article into Google Translate but it is toooooo loooong. I have to flip back and forth between the article and Google Translate because the French words are too unfamiliar and I can only remember a few words at a time. Also, the translation is often not accurate and requires some critical reading and guesswork for true translation: In April 1896, while touring the Bulgarian coast of the Black Sea for a stay of one week in Sozoupolis (ancient Apollonia in Thrace), I acquired, among other ancient coins, five autonomous small bronzes, all well preserved, two of which had a very nice black patina. In July 1897, on a new tour in the same place, stopping in Sozoupolis five days, I collected a small autonomous archaic silver coin plus four of these same small autonomous imperial bronzes plus one with the image of Faustina minor. Here is the description of these eleven coins which are now on display at Sophia Museum: [drawings and descriptions of coins] I consider that these coins belong to Apollonia in Thrace. An important argument to me is provided by the pieces, of which I will now speak. In Thrace, both in the Ebro valley meadows located in the coastal areas of the Aegean Sea, there are often small pieces of silver of the following types: [description of coins] and then many pages of explanation, which is the important part but I tired of painstakingly typing the unfamiliar words . Maybe someone else can have a go at it.
Oh, cool!! I found a site which will convert .jpg screen shots to text files which I can then copy and paste into Google Translate. I started taking screen caps, converting to Word, and pasting into Google Translate but stopped because the translation was so flawed. Maybe some other time .
Great work TIF. Thank-you. It has just gone 5:00 am here, and I haven't had my first cup of tea, yet. I have quickly read your posts, and I will now read them more slowly. I really do appreciate your work on this one. Thank-you.
Here's what I see from Topalov 2007: "94. bronze dichalk (beginning of the 2nd c. B.C.) obverse: Full-face naked Apollo, standing and holding a laurel tree and two arrows. The image represents the statue of Kalamis erected in the town. reverse: Upright anchor with large flukes and a rectangular stock. The letter A l. and the additional symbol of a crab r. viewed from above on the other side between flukes and the stock. Topalov, Stavri (2007-11-01). Apollonia Pontica. Contribution to the Study of the Coin Minting of the City 6th-1st c. B.C. (Kindle Locations 448-452). Nasko-1701. Kindle Edition. "
