Lawyers have consciences, but they work a little different than the general public. Most people feel genuine care and feelings for others. Us lawyers too, except we require a certain drug called "money" to bring those feelings out.The more money you have, the more we empathize with you and the more we care.
LOL, all of my lawyers told me that the Line of the Law is a ROPE. It just depends WHERE the rope is placed on the ground that determines on which side of the rope (and how elastic the rope can be...) that your case is...
Most of the large coins we have circulated little but were hoarded or transferred in pots full for large transactions. Most people didn't put away thousands of fractional silvers in a nice protective pot so most of what we have were probably 'field finds' or things lost in the market place (we won't touch topic of the ones that were swallowed and where they went). I suspect the larger groups that were found together were more likely to be a merchant's cash register than a life savings hoard. No, I can't prove that. In my time in the hobby, I recall seeing exactly one really worn dekadrachm and it always bothered me a little just how that coin got that way. I suspect it was a pocket piece of a gentleman sometime a couple hundred years ago. More of them are EF, The same goes for Athenian owl tetradrachms. I once say a dealer with a large bag of nice ones all about the same date marked 'Your Choice, $500' but I can't recall seeing a similar group of hemiobols. Individual field finds that spent 2000 years in the dirt have every right to be a bit rough.
What a coincidence, I just put my own little Kolophon tetartemorion in that other minicoin thread today. I bought it 35 years ago from a Swiss business (that still exists), one of the few coins that I kept through the years. One of few ancient coins bearing the name of its denomination: TE(tartemorion)! 7 mm, 0.24 gr.
Ionia is a region of central Anatolia. See the regions of Anatolia here for your personal future reference: The city states of Ionia banded together in the 7th Century BCE to create a military alliance known as the Ionian League (sometimes also referred to as the Panionic League). Of the 12 city-states that made up the League, Kolophon was the strongest. The league also held a sporting festival known as the Panionia. Kolophon was destroyed in the 3rd century BCE and a nearby port area around which a new town grew was renamed Kolophon...so fun fact, the Kolophon of Roman times is not the same Kolophon of Greek times. ***Remember that the Greek world back then was more than just modern Greece. Their city-states were all over the Mediterranean, including large parts of modern day Turkey, North Africa, Southern Italy, and the French and Spanish coasts.
Minor correction to the attribution, Sallent. The dates usually given for these is circa 500-450 BCE, so 5th century, not 6th.
Here are "10" of my random mini-bites ... ISLANDS off THRACE, Thasos AR Sixteenth Stater – Hemiobol Circa 500-480 BC Diameter: 8 mm Weight: 0.56 grams Obverse: Two dolphins swimming in opposite directions; pellets around Reverse: Quadripartite incuse square IONIA, Ephesos, AR Tetartemorion Circa 500-420 BC Diameter: 5 x 8 mm Weight: 0.17 grams Obverse: Bee Reverse: Head of eagle right within incuse square TROAS, Kebren, AR Diobol 5th century BC Diameter: 8 mm Weight: 1.16 grams Obverse: Archaic head (of Apollo?) left Reverse: Head of ram left within incuse square TROAS, Kebren, AR Obol 5th century BC Diameter: 7 mm Weight: 0.61 grams Obverse: Archaic head (of Apollo?) left Reverse: Head of ram left within incuse square CARIA, Idyma. AR Hemiobol 5th century BC Diameter: 8 mm Weight: 0.44 grams Obverse: Land tortoise with segmented shell Reverse: Leaf, pellet IONIA, Erythrai. AR Hemiobol Circa 480-450 BC Diameter: 6 mm Weight: 0.29 grams Obverse: Rosette Reverse: Simpler rosette within incuse square PHOENICIA, Tyre. Uncertain king. AR Twenty-fourth Shekel Circa 393-311/0 BC Diameter: 7 mm Weight: 0.46 grams Obverse: Dolphin leaping right Reverse: Owl standing right, head facing; crook and flail in background SATRAPS of CARIA, Pixodaros, AR Trihemiobol Circa 341/0-336/5 BC Halikarnassos mint Diameter: 9.5 mm Weight: 0.82 grams Obverse: Laureate head of Apollo facing slightly right, drapery around neck Reverse: Starlike floral pattern MACEDON, Eion, AR Obol? (Tritartemorion?) Circa 460-400 BC Diameter: 10 mm Weight: 0.37 grams Obverse: Two geese standing right; ivy leaf and H to left Reverse: Quadripartite incuse square MACEDON, Mende. AR Tritartemorion Circa 460-423 BC Diameter: 10 mm Weight: 0.62 grams Obverse: Ass standing right Reverse: Crow standing left within incuse square Oh, and again => congrats on your sweet lil' OP-addition (it is very cool)
Thank you. That was really good. I learned something new today. No matter how much you know. You can always learn more.
Maybe the ones with the side profile of Apollo, which were minted at a later date, but the ones with the front portrait of Apollo are from around 525 BCE-490 BCE. Every attribution I found puts them around those dates. The ones with the side profile date from around 490 BCE through 450 BCE
Very good thing you didn't. It probably would have taken me weeks to go back home and retrieve it, and I would have been very confused when I found it in my mail pile.
Okay. I haven't checked any actual reference books and was just going by what CNG's catalogers showed for all their front-facing examples.
Here it is... nicely toned. And it really isn't that small. I thought 7mm would feel smaller. In fact, It's so big that after leaving it out on my desk and forgetting to put it back in its holder, it only took me a mere 15 minutes to find it under all the paperwork on my desk (my office desk is dark, so the coin blends in). I must have lost 10 pounds in sweat during the panic trying to find it. I was almost ready to pull my hair out.