January 2020 has so far been one of my least successful months of collecting ever. I ended 2019 on a couple of highs, but a busy school-schedule, even over the holidays, has kept me from posting any of those. Now that the workload has slowed down a bit, I placed a couple of bids on some international auctions, but sadly those were all blown out of the water. Especially Steve Album, where the already high prices for interesting Islamic and Eastern coinage are soaring even higher. With the month drawing to a close, it seems the tally is just two coins for the entire month; both of which I already bought a couple of weeks ago. You see, the same time you guys on your side of the pond had the small and relatively unknown NYINC fair, the Trition sale, FUN show and everything associated (I mean, who has ever heard of those?), there was a far more prestigious and internationally acclaimed coin fair right here in the Netherlands! The world-famous, highly prestigious and ever-busy coin fair in De Druiventros, Tilburg! Breaking attendance-records with a couple of hundred visitors, dwarfing all your small North American shows… In total I think only seven dealers even had anything ancient or medieval, mostly the same stock as they had carried for the past four iterations of the fair. One dealer however had an album filled with Islamic coins that I couldn’t quite remember ever having looked through. My interest was immediately piqued. Rightly so, because I spotted two quite nice examples of coins I had been on the lookout for for ages! There were quite reasonably priced and the dealer would even give a slight discount for the two of them. We both walked away happy. Kilwa Sultanate, Ali bin Al-Hassan. AE Fals (Kilwa Kisiwani, 11-15th Century) Obv: علي بن الحسن - سعد (Ali bin al-Hassan, may he be happy) / Rev: يثق بمولى المنن عز (Trust in the Master of Bounties, he is glorious). A coin from Kilwa has been on my wishlist ever since @FitzNigel’s post about them a fair while back. The dealer had several for sale, but I ended up going with this immobilised Fals struck in the name of Sultan Ali bin Al-Hassan, the legendary founder of the Kilwa Sultanate. He was the seventh son of the Persian Emir of Shiraz, while his mother was merely an Abyssinian (Habesha) slave. After the death of his father, Ali was driven out and set sail for the east-African shore. He arrived in current-day Tanzania and purchased the small island of Kilwa Kisiwani from the local Bantu king Almuli for the amount of cloth it took to cover the circumference of the island. This coin ties in perfectly with this origin story: Archaeologically they have been excavated in various contexts from the 11th -15th century and it is thus likely that it is in fact an immobilised type struck in the name of the first Sultan to provide legitimacy to succeeding rulers. Kilwa was one of the only mints in Sub-Saharan Africa in the ancient and medieval periods and therefore a noteworthy inclusion in a collection meant to highlight the diversity of the numismatic record! Who knows, I might just go back and pick up a few more of the other coins from Kilwa that the seller had…. The second coin is a bit of a story. It came identified as a Volga-Bulgar imitation of a Samanid dirham, which is why I was so interested. Regular Samanid dirhams are by no means rare, but I really wanted one of their imitations. The Volga-Bulgars were a fascinating, semi-nomadic people, whose strategic location between the Arab world and Scandinavia allowed them to play a pivotal role in the trade between these two worlds. This trade was facilitated mostly by the Islamic Dirham, which was thus also imitated by various entities in eastern Europe, amongst which the Volga-Bulgars and the Khazars. Some of these imitations are recognisable because of the addition of a Tamgha, the Volga-Bulgar Emir or a special mint name. Die-links have however shown that most of these imitations are faithful copies of the original dirhams, albeit with a course calligraphy and sometimes nonsensical inscriptions. This coin shows no additional Tamgha or name of the Volga-Bulgar emir. I was thus a bit sceptical of the attribution; the coin seems to cite both the Abbasid Caliph and the Samanid emir Nasr II ibn Ahmad, 307 AH and Al-Shash mint (Modernday Tashkent). A year/mint combination which is indeed frequently imitated by the Volga-Bulgars, although mostly with the name of the Volga-Bulgar Emir rather than the Samanid emir. My scepticism mostly disappeared when I spotted that this exact coin had been auctioned by Steve Album nearly a decade ago, already attributed as a Volga-Bulgar imitation. He noted: “Somewhat coarse calligraphy, with the center of the word sharik in the obverse field displaying a typical Volga Bulghar ornament attached, lovely VF” I normally totally trust Steve Album and respect his opinion, so I was convinced; it had to be such an imitation! While researching at home however, I saw someone had posted it on Zeno.ru, where another expert had identified it as not being an imitation. Instead it seems to be a regular Samanid dirham. I have not been able to find a die-match either way and my experience with reading Arabic is not sufficient enough to make a sensible comment on the ‘somewhat coarse calligraphy’, although in comparing some of the other official dirhams from this mint and date, I find that it seems to be rather comparable. Any thoughts? So what would you guys do? Return the dirham because there is more than reasonable doubt on whether it is indeed a Volga-Bulgar (or even an Eastern European) imitation? Keep it for the fact that it is a pleasing coin, regardless of whether it is a Samanid dirham or not? I paid significantly less than the coin hammered for in 2012, but too much for a regular Samanid dirham. It thus seems that January might only see one coin enter the collection… As usual, please share whatever you find relevant!
@AnYangMan, I really like your 2 acquisitions...they have "The Look"! I love coins like that...you can imagine the trade they have seen. That said, this is really out of my bailiwick; while I do have a few Islamic coins buried in my world coin section, they were acquired with other coins & I have them just to have them. OK, so your concern is about the 2nd coin & the possible disparity between what you want it to be versus what it may be. The Album opinion is what you would like it to be, & that was about a decade ago (circa 2010), while the coin hammered 2 yrs later, in 2012, for more than you paid. This may suggest that the previous owner came to the conclusion that it was not the imitation & decided to unload it. Then apparently after 8 years in limbo, it resurfaces in your hands at a significantly less cost. And then subsequently, another expert suggests it is not the imitation you want it to be, & you have not, so far, been able to rectify this dilemma. First, I would wait a day or 2, until CT experts/responders have a chance to view it & comment. I would think you will get some excellent replies & advice. As far as keeping it if it's not what you want it to be, only you can answer that question. I treat my collection the same as I do much of my stock portfolio, I "dollar cost average"; I know sometimes I will pay a little more, and sometimes I pay a little less. If I worry about each transaction on its own, it will drive me nuts. But it's still a very nice specimen! So, even if it turns out not to be what you want it to be, if you didn't grossly overpay, it still has "The Look"! Good luck & I too look forward to responses & your final decision.
I got a few coins in January of 2020, and this Kushan AE tetradrachm was by far the coolest. My first Kushan and a right nice looking specimen. 100-128 AD Vima Kadphises, 15.96 grams, 21 mm D.
I would suggest writing to Steve and asking him what his current opinion is on the coin, and why, pointing him to the diverging opinion on Zeno. The Kilwa coin is great, and the other would be fantastic if it's Bulgar. Samanid: Isma'il ibn Ahmad (892-907), AR dirhem dated 280 AH (893-94), Samarqand mint
