LOL...I have a little 9mm guy from Marseilles myself,see the M & A in the bottom two quadrants?..sorry 'bout the blurry pic.
Very nice Mikjo. What was the deal with the 'deliberate' off-centering of coins back in the day? I have one with the same centering on one side and pretty well centered on the reverse. Again, yet another beauty from your collection :thumb: B
You have to remember how the coins were struck back then, You had one die fixed or set into a stump or anvil. You put a planchet on top of that and set a die that you held in your hand on top of it a SMACKED it with a sledgehammer. In some cases you held the die and someone ELSE smacked it. If you were trying to make some time you might be smacking the coins and someone else is putting on the planchet. After you have been doing this for a little bit your arms are getting pretty tired and you will find that you are not trying to be real careful to make sure you get that die squarely set on that planchet, especially if you are trying to strike a bunch of these coins in a short period of time.
Chuckle, gives the literal meaning of "hit or miss." What I was reffering to was the sometime (appears) obvious off-centering of the obverse bust with a ring of beads only partially shown and the reverse pretty well centered. The god dionysis (sp?) is one frequently protrayed with the partial portrait. B
The ring of beads is supposed to follow the edge of the coin in a full circle like modern denticles,the guy just missed his mark with the obverse "strike" die.Why are they so common?I think Conder hit the coin on the head..*yuk yuk*. What's more interesting is that I didn't know you had any serrated edge ancients.They're not very common.I only have 2 or three myself.Nice AlexII!
Thanks, It's actually a discovery coin on http://www.wildwinds.com/ Look up the Selecuid kingdom and then Alexander II. About 5 coins down you'll see this example Actually it's #SNGCop373 B
At last, after a long time, I'm able to break the mystery behind this coin..:thumb: Its a confirmed modern fabrication of Viraraya fanam.. No such fanam existed originally.. It is reported that a lot of fanams have been forged for decades, partly for distribution through promoters and telemarketers in North America and Europe.. Thousands of these coins were distributed around the US by a Florida dealer (now deceased) [I wish I know his name, but I really dont know] in the 1970s and 1980s.. ( source : 'Gold Fanams' by Hans Herrli). Ofcourse, there are a lot of unconfirmed coins from India.. But this is definitely a fabrication...
