Among the great rarities of the 11th century Byzantine coppers are coins that were struck on metal that had not been used for coins previously. That provides us with many overstruck coins ranging from messy to really messy. I find interest in trying to figure out just how these coins came to be. Below are three Byzantine folles. On the left is Romanus IV's almost anonymous issue kept from that title by the large R on the reverse which stands for (guess?) Romanus. Research project: find a reference on these that doesn't assume you know the meanings of the other letters. On the right is a follis of Michael VII showing Christ facing on the obverse and the emperor on the reverse. I rotated the reverse to orient it like the detail on the middle coin which is what we got striking the right coin over the left coin. I should have rotated the obverse of the left coin to be oriented with the center coin but I could not find details that convinced me which way was up. The interesting thing IMHO here is the weights and diameters of the coins. One reason for overstriking was to cut down on the metal used so it is no great surprise to me that the left coin "undertype" is heavier than the others. The surprise is that it is only a bit more than half the weight but 6mm greater in diameter. My guess here is that the host coin was trimmed down and hammered flat a bit more than usual making a flan so thin that it only retained a few of the details. We see part of the cross and a weak C (upper left quadrant). The C is larger than the one on the left coin but I see this as evidence that the coin was hammered (perhaps between leather???) to spread the flan for reuse. The more I look at coins like this, the more details I see that can be linked to the previous coin. This is the game for the truly bored I mentioned in the title. If you see something here you thing I saw incorrectly, please tell me. Both the right and the left coins show signs of having been, themselves, overstruck. On the left, is that a small Christ face peering over the top of the large Christ? Could it be SB1853? Identifying the history of these coins can be fun for those who like their coins 'Byzantine'.
I should know more about these since I have so many. Perhaps D.O. has information about Romanus IV, unfortunately I have volume IV which starts at 1081. Nicephorus III over-struck on a sb1880 I think you are on the right track Doug, Sear does a good job of corresponding which issues are over-struck on each other; but it can still be confusing. I had some that I sold which I simply labeled as triple struck and were completely unidentifiable. I will have to dig up those photos, hope I still have them. So my '03 version of Sear has your 1st coin as 1866 not 1865, which simply says "These are often overstruck on earlier folles".
While it is tempting to associate the 'R' to Romanus, as I originally did, in reality, it is an 11th century version of the Greek Β. The C is actually Σ. As a result, according to DOC, the forgoing assumption in the inscription of SB1866 is the following: CΒΡΔ (Σταύρε Βοήθει Ρωμανός Δεσποτη) - O Cross, Help Romanos Diogenes (or Despotes) Now, the other interpretation of C is to view it as though it is a Kappa and hence instead of Cross, it becomes Κύριε for Lord, but apparently that interpretation has been deemed unlikely as seal inscriptions indicate it is the first interpretation that was common. I, unfortunately, don't have SB1866 in my collection so I am going to use a stock picture to illustrate my overstruck coins in the same awesome format that Doug has illustrated his. In general, all the coins I own have a grey background and the ones I use as a reference are typically white: Byzantine Empire: Michael VII Ducas (1071-1078) Æ Follis, Constantinople (Sear-1878; DOC-14b) Obv: Bust of Christ Pantokrator facing, bearded, with cross behind, wearing tunic and himation; right hand raised before breast in blessing, left hand holds book from beneath. In field, IC and XC above lateral arms of cross; six-pointed stars beneath them to left and right Rev: +MIX AHΛ RACIOΔ; Crowned bust of Michael facing, bearded, wearing modified loros with collar-piece and crown with cross and pendilia, holding in right hand labarum, in left globus cruciger Overstruck on a follis of Romanus IV (Sear-1866), below an original one
Interesting thread! The early and late Romans had plenty of over struck coins. I have seen several this year and picked up a couple. flip over double struck RR on an earlier Greek coin. The last one is not blue, I an still struggling with pics from my new camera
Doug, I don't have Sear Byzantine and am confused by your SB 1865. The online resources I've checked (Wildwinds, CNG's archives) show SB 1865 as a silver coin and SB 1866 as a follis like yours. Are there different editions of Sear Byz, and did the numbers change? Here's one I have down as SB 1866. Peek-a-boo Jesus overstrike. Romanus IV Diogenes CE 1068-1071 AE follis, 10.57 gm Constantinople Obv: IC-XC over NI-KA to left and right of bust of Christ facing, dotted cross behind head, wearing pallium and colobium, holding book of Gospels with both hands Rev: C-R P-Δ in the four angles of a cross with globe and two dots at each extremity, X in the centre. Ref: Sear 1866, DO-8 Melting into SB 1867 (coin from CNG's archives)-- looks like this could be the undertype? It would be better if I slowed down the gif but the original is on some old external drive and I can't find it at the moment. Clearly there is much I don't know about Byzantines. If these coins (SB 1866 and 1867) were struck during Romanus IV's brief reign, why would the undertype be a coin which was so recently struck? Maybe the undertype isn't SB 1867, or maybe I don't understand when these were struck.
I like reading the inscriptions on my coins and transcribing as much as I can in Unicode. Challenging to say the least for some languages...
Thanks for the translation! My Sear is 1974 and at the bottom of page 319 is this coin numbered 1865 followed by "1866 (Some of the folles struck during this reign were of the anonymous type - see page 330)". On page 330 under Class G is the coin with Mary. Back on page 320 is a listing of 1867 as a gold coin (extremely rare) of the joint reign of Eudocia and Michael VII. I suspect the coin was delisted in later versions but I do not buy a new edition every time Sear issues one. Sorry for the confusion.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanos_IV_Diogenes#/media/File:Romanus_IV.jpg I should have looked harder.
