Athenian Tetradrachm with Large Test Cut

When it comes to coins that I never thought I'd be able to own, the iconic Athenian tetradrachm was up there for years. It may be more common than something like the Syracusan decadrachm but I still consider it such a treasure nonetheless. I usually don't get coins of this magnitude as this is now the second most expensive coin in my collection (the most still being as of this post the gold solidus of Heraclius that I've posted about before). The giant test cut that split the poor owl's head open might be a little distracting for a lot of people but it certainly helped make this piece something within my grasp financially and there's still plenty of detail preserved regardless. To finally be able to acquire one for my collection really is a dream come true, I'm kind of at a loss for words honestly. Feel free to share your examples here!



Attica, Athens
AR Tetradrachm
454-404-BC
Helmeted head of Athena right
AθE, Owl standing right, facing, olive sprig and crescent behind
Large test cut
15.60 g.
24 mm.

 

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Countermarks and test-cuts are very frequent on owls from hoards found in Egypt and the Middle-East. It seems they are much less frequent in hoards found in Greece : test-cuts and countermarks were probably made by Oriental bankers...

I have two owls, both with this kind of marks, both bought in Damascus


Probably bona fide Attic issue, 5th c. BC.


Athens, mid-4th c. BC Pi-style, minted after 353 BC. On Athena's cheek, cmk. with a Phoenician letter.

 

That's right! Never let anyone "test-cut shame" you. We buy what we can afford to buy. (As opposed to some who buy more than they can afford, and then consequently forever dread the monthly credit card bill. LOL!)

The test-cut adds character to a coin, and tells a little story about it. Although we don't know exactly when it happened, we know that at some point in ancient times someone needed to verify whether the tetradrachm you now own was genuinely silver through-and-through. And they found out in a way that even today still reveals the answer.

Also, as test-cuts go, I wouldn't call it "giant". I've seen more extreme hacks, and some that were cut in places that badly marred the central device. That's not true with yours! And I like that the test-cut is mainly evident just on one side.

And I love the humor in the fact that the location of the cut allows a well-known figurative idiom to be said literally about your coin's owl: "Got him right-between-the-eyes!" ;-)

 

Personally @Codera I would call it an "honest coin". After buying a couple of fakes in the past I have made a point of regarding bankers marks and graffiti as a positive and in some instances have encouraged me to buy a coin particularly expensive Octavian denarii which brought them within my reach.
When you consider the "sweating" of hand struck cobs by the Potosi minters in the 16th Century and the clipping of 15th and 16th Century Hammered coins I wonder if there was not some smug trader or banker making such deep cuts on every coin and then salvaging the silver at the end of his day? Certainly such a deep cut would contribute to the lower weight you mentioned on another post.
Here is my "Owl". I wanted one for a long time but had other priorities. My strategy was to put in lowball bids and on one lucky day I picked mine up at a Noonans Auction which had several more and I guess they ran out of owl buyers as I picked this up relatively inexpensively.

HELMETED ATHENA FACING RIGHT
OWL STANDING RIGHT WITH OLIVE SPRIG IN INCUSE SQUARE

SEAR 2526

 

A single test cut on a silver coin causes the metal to be displaced but not removed. To achieve that, a second cut would be necessary, and given the very thick flans of these owls, a lot of effort.

Yes, Spanish colonial cobs lent themselves to clipping or shaving (or both). Some of them were also shaved to achieve lower legal weight for a given locality, such as North Africa in the 18th century.

 

I do respectfully somewhat disagree somewhat with @robinjojo but really appreciate his comments as it has set me thinking. This is because there is there's no way to "cut" something without some form of material loss even on a microscopic level.
The question is , how was it cut and what with?
These coins were more than 95% silver so the copper content was low but the science still is;
Plastic Deformation: When you press a sharp knife edge into the silver, the metal will initially undergo plastic deformation and be displaced. It literally moves out of the way of the blade. Next step. Shearing and fracture; As you apply more force and/or draw the knife, the stress at the cutting edge eventually exceeds the silver's strength. The metal will then shear, meaning it breaks along the plane of the cut.
Chip/Burr Formation: The act of shearing inevitably creates tiny fragments, chips, or burrs of metal that are detached from the main body of the coin. These fragments are the "lost" metal.
I used to direct a non-ferrous foundry so cutting and metallurgy were key issues. I can't believe the cut in this coin is simply displaced metal as it is catastrophic which lends itself to a blade with teeth or an extremely sharp thick blade.
With this amount of damage, IMHO, the gap isn't just compressed metal; it's empty space where some material used to be.
At this time carbon steel was available but to make such a deep cut I would have thought would be dangerous to the holder of the coin unless possibly it was clamped and now we drift into the realms of multiple cuts necessitating a jig or fixture. If every coin is to be cut and we know there could be thousands, deep cuts might prove profitable.
I would imagine a carbon blade would have been expensive and highly prized but maybe one lost blade was worth more than a fake "owl".
Clearly there was no significance given to this action on a sacred basis to create such a defacement and it could even have occurred much later and elsewhere.
If I consider @robinjojo's comment with my own I am undecided and on a balance scale would think we are possibly equally right.
I am so intrigued by @robinjo's comment that I am going to conduct an experiment with a divers knife and a Silver Britannia coin. These coins are 95.8% silver and I will weigh one and then try to make a deep cut holding it and clamping it. I'll post my results.
If you seek the truth you can't hold an opinion and my opinion is wavering.
There are hundreds of millions of Britannia's so this is an experiment in the interest of science and it will still hold its bullion value and could possibly create some numismatic interest in a couple of hundred years time.
I can imagine the Heritage listing. " Extraordinary artisan defaced Britannia coin possibly making a political anti monarchy comment during the transition from the new Elizabethan Age? Micro cellular sub atomic DNA testing indicates the defacer was a 68 year old male with a compulsive inquisitive personality who lost blood during the process".
I would not be surprised if DNA would reveal personality in a couple of hundred years time. We have much to learn and a lot of it will be discovered after we are gone.

 

Here are a couple of owl tetradrachm examples. Like @Codera, this is not my collecting area but as the Athenian owl tetradrachm is such an iconic coin, I took the plunge to purchase one a year or two ago. I figured with the large Turkish hoard continuing to be sold onto the market at the time and quite a few nice quality pieces going for non-exorbitant prices, it was time to acquire a piece within my price range.

The first coin I acquired was this one... Athena's nose and headdress are off the flan, making the price affordable, but everything else is in good shape, and the portrait spoke to me. This one was EUR 355.




Then these came along. These two owls were in a group of four, average cost per coin was $US 175 or so. They are a lot more worn, but in my opinion they certainly have character, and are undoubtably genuine. These intrigued me because of their countermarks, and of course, the test cuts which indicate they circulated in the Levant:

 

I reckon you would have needed a samurai sword to make that test cut @lordmarcovan! Following my comments above I decided to follow up on the ideas I expressed in the post. In hindsight it was a pretty stupid suggestion to make on a pubic forum that I was going to deface a current legal tender British coin. I could probably still be hanged for that. I decided to try and make a cut on a Bullion pure silver Austrian "Philharmonic" coin. This table compares the "Owl" with the "Philharmonic". My logic was that a pure silver coin would be easier to put a cut into.

Ancient Athens Owl Tetradrachm Modern Austrian Philharmonic (1 oz)
Purity

~95-98% 99.9%
Total Weight

~17.2 grams ~31.1035 grams (1 troy ounce)
Actual Silver Content (approx.)

~16.7 grams ~31.1035 grams
Hardness (Mohs Scale)

~2.7-2.8 (due to copper alloy) ~2.5-3 (pure silver)
Due to its significantly higher purity and lack of hardening alloys, the modern Austrian Philharmonic coin should be easier to make a test cut on, as the metal is softer and more malleable.

The modern coin is not meant to be circulated and modern refining is more sophisticated so coins for bullion are purer compared to ancient coins.
I then tried the experiment and that is when it all went wrong.

I took a sharp carbon steel divers knife and attempted to make a cut on the edge of the modern coin. I could hardly put a dent in it. I couldn't do this with the coin in my fingers. Subsequently, by holding the coin in a Mole Grip / Vise Grip I managed to make a tiny nick in the edge. There was a tiny drop in weight as can be seen in the image below but even using my full strength , unless the coin had been held in a bench vise, I cannot see how I could have made a big impression without sawing the coin.
How the heck did the ancients do it? Compared to my modern coin the tetradrachm is much smaller and with irregular surfaces. Maybe they were dropped into a semi circular slot in a bench or anvil and hit with a blade? I can see no way that anyone could cut one of these by holding it in their fingers. It would have to be clamped in some way. If they were clamped shouldn't there be evidence of this?
To show the difference in the coins see my owl in my hand compared to the modern coin.
Of course my Philharmonic could be a fake but it passes the magnet test and came from a reputable dealer. I don't have ready access to an XRF tester.
In essence my experiment didn't really prove anything but raise more questions.
I wouldn't want to try the experiment with an Owl tetradrachm that has survived for millennia and I can only express amazement at the depth of cut on @Codera 's example. Other than the cut it is in great shape so probably didn't see much circulation and is a handsome coin.
My owl weighs 17.5 grams and I can see how @Codera 's example weighs a bit less with a chunk missing.
I guess the Jury's still out on this one.

 

One of mine. Other is circulated with test cut

 

@robinjojo is right; a test cut like that displaces but does not remove metal - and certainly not anywhere near the 1.5-2 grams needed to bring it up to the standard weight.

I always imagined the test cuts being applied on a tabletop (or flat stable surface of some kind) with a chisel and hammer. If the chisel were placed properly, you probably wouldn't even need to clamp it.

 

I have to disagree on that. If we say that the standard weight of a Tetradrachm is 17.2 g the evidence above shows a coin that is significantly underweight at 15.6 g, I cannot believe that a trader of banker would not be weighing these before even contemplating cutting them. @Codera 's coin represents a 9.3% loss compared to stated average. That's a lot of missing metal and probably the price of a goat then. A loss approaching 10% is serious money lost. You can't say that it is wear because apart from the cut, @Codera 's coin is in great shape with lots of detail.
Good point @The Meat man man about hitting it with a hammer and chisel, I'm influenced by the word "cut". I can imagine that the bankers marks on some of my Republican denarii were made with a chisel or other object to determine malleability but a cut implies attempting to reveal a core as you would find in a fourree.
@romismatist's coin and @GinoLR 's coins definitely looks as if they were whacked by a chisel and I can imagine someone saying it's soft so silver and low copper content but the original post coin looks different.

 

I suspect that the coin may have originally been slightly underweight, which is why whoever it was decided to check to make sure it wasn't a plated counterfeit. Breaking through the surface like that with a deep chisel cut would have instantly revealed a base metal core, if there was one. There was no need to actually remove material as in sawing out a chunk; and a single hammer blow took much less time.

The bulk of the weight loss, though, probably occurred over the ensuing centuries through crystallization. The slight, uniform roughness of the surfaces looks like crystallization to me.

 

From my non-ferrous foundry days we were taught that crystallization is a structural rearrangement not a loss of mass.

To explain this simply without a thesis.

Imagine the silver owl. Over two thousand years, it won't actually lose weight because of something called "crystallization." That's just the atoms rearranging inside, not disappearing.

However, if it has copper mixed in like all owls, a serious problem called embrittlement can occur in coins alloyed with copper. The copper content, over centuries, can slowly separate and gather at the edges of the tiny silver grains. This creates weak spots. Then, environmental issues like pollution can enter into these weak spots, causing tiny internal "rusting." The silver doesn't get lighter, but it becomes incredibly fragile and can easily crack or crumble, like old, dry wood. This is a common issue with ancient silver. These can mineralise and literally fall off like dust.
I don't see evidence of crystallization on the original post owl although it looks like @GinoLR 's third example looks somewhat crystalline.

If you take a look at my "best" example of embrittlement , this is a Lucius Titurius L.f. Sabinus denarius, Crawford 344/1a minted in 89 bc over 300 years after the Owl tetradrachm. This is a fourree and you can see some fantastic chemical reaction going on as the core is made of copper. We can see Verdigris and also Cuprite or Copper Oxide. My image isn't great but in the hand you can also see pronounced red spots as well as the green spots.

Some assume that iron was used in the core of many fourree's but this was seldom the case because Copper is denser than iron at 8.96 g / cm3 compared to iron at only 7.87 g/cm3. Silver tops both at 10.49 g/cm3. A iron core denarius would be lighter and of course magnetic. I have yet to encounter a magnetic fourree.


This coin approximates the diameter of a "normal" Sabine denarius I have but is only 2.3 g compared to my other silver coin at 3.8 g. Clearly, when first made, it would have had to have approximated the real coins weight but over two thousand years the copper has mineralised and there is a really significant weight loss.
I bought this many years ago purely for the interesting metallurgy it exhibits.
When I first picked it up I thought it was an Antonius Pius denarius until I looked at it closer with a magnifying glass.
There is much interesting data on coin metallurgy but if you want to really dive down a deep rabbit hole you can start by reading Hall E. T. and Metcalf D. M. Methods of Chemical and Metallurgical Investigation of Ancient Coinage A symposium held by the Royal Numismatic Society at Burlington House London 9-11 December 1970. The Royal Numismatic Society, London, 1972, Special Publication 8. This digs deep into silvered coins and the effect of time on ancient coins.


It's amazing how one coin can trigger such a debate and that's what is so great about this forum. You never know where the next rabbit hole is.....