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The SNG Kayhan is a wonderful book for the collector of tiny coins but really points out how many variations there are and how wildly the weights vary. I'm not sure Kayhan had many of the smallest ones since his tend to be larger than mine. If you apply any degree of quality standards in your collecting, you will soon see that it is much harder to find coins with eye appeal under .2g than it is to find fat obols and hemiobols.

I now believe my coin has a cow on the reverse. The presence of two legs makes me want to read the short horn as an edge view of a second ear. The obverse with one leg and one horn makes sense that is hard to accept with the two legged animal. TTerrier has a great bull reverse in later style but it seems the long, long horns were too archaic for that date.

 

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Yes, it was property one collector over the last 20 years or so mostly from name auctions and full price dealers. In addition to the small ones, he had a thing for Thasos tetradrachms of barbarous style and a few other unofficial looking Greek types. I believe there were about 300 small coins with duplication in a few places but most duplicates were actually minor variations with a dot here or there.

I will see the dealer again Friday in Baltimore but don't know if I will want to look at the boxes again to see what I missed or wait and see if the prices go down in a year. These might not be easy to sell unless one buyer decides to make an offer for the group.

Another:
Seal head of Phokaia, Ionia, 8mm, 0.33g hemiobol? He had a lot of those small coins with the denomination marked on the reverse but I had enough of them already so did not buy his. My marked tetartemoria weigh about this much so this seal may be a tetartemorion. That would make an obol over 1g which seems too much. I don't claim to know.


While I'm on little animals, this cock is so well centered that it loses something on every side. The reverse is a triskles with central pellet. It was attributed to 'Asia Minor, uncertain'. 11mm 0.15g (thin)

 

Cool group of minicoins @dougsmit !

I only have two sub 15 mm Greek AR coins, this 7 mm coins from Lesbos is my smallest.





If you haven't tried it, stare at the two boars heads and see if you brain will transform it into a single facing head views slightly from above! I never saw it as a single head until I read about it, now my brain flips it back and forth! LOL!

 

I found it interesting that the dealer ticket that came with this Lycian Dynast hemiobol (9mm, 0.27g) described the obverse as a lion head left while the literature (and I) see it as a scalp view from above. I can only see it roaring left if my thumb covers half the coin. This coin has a particularly low contrast gray 'patina' which makes detail harder to see. I bought it largely for the very clear reverse legend in Lycian letters - the first three letters in the name of the Dynast Mithrapata (c.400 BC).

 

Doug, great example from Phokaia to start this thread! I saw that specimen in Philadelphia and had a strong reaction to it. Your photo of it is wonderful. Why are we keeping a secret of the dealer's name?

The example I chose was also from Phokaia. Everyone who has seen this example in hand had a strong reaction. Unfortunately in photos it looks really, really poor. Perhaps I am not lighting it correctly? Or perhaps it is truly poor, but the human eye cannot see the roughness of the surface.


IONIA, Phokaia, AR Tetartmorion, 0.17g (1/96th stater or hemitetartemorion?), 4.5 x 6mm
Obv: Female head left, wearing helmet or close fitting cap
Rev: Incuse square
Rosen 598; cf. CNG e-auction 286 #110

I wish I could see the CNG specimen in person for comparison.

 

Mine is similar @5mm 0.1g.


Herakles Numismatics. The consignment is not on his site but will be at Baltimore this weekend.