Edward the Elder (899-924) 2 line penny. The moneyer is Thurlac. Ex Vatican Hoard lot 79 (1929), R C Lockett 2730 (1958) and C S Raine (Davissons 34, lot 108) collections. The wax on the reverse is from an impression taken by the BM for their records, the coin being unique.
@robp, just, Yikes. Yikes. Yikes. Who is that guy here who posts the meme of Orson Welles applauding?
And something completely different, a William II type 3 penny of Watchet. Not the prettiest, but the only William II of this mint available to commerce.
Here is a medieval piece from the Eastern side of things. Northern Song Dynasty of China Emperor Renzong | 1034-1038 CE AE Cash | 2.97 g | 25mm Obv: Jing You Yuan Bao in seal script Rev: Plain
A distinctly good style Florent d'Avesnes-Hainaut as Prince of Achaea: AR19x18mm, 0.81g, billon denier tournois, minted at Glarentza, cca. 1292/3-1297. + ꞏ FLORЄNS : P : ACh ꞏ; Cross pattee + DЄ ꞏ CLARЄNCIA *; chateau tournois cf. Malloy 14, Metcalf XXXIX, 6-7; Saulcy XV, 2. Notes: This coin was minted in lower weight, as to align the Achaea deniers with the ones minted in Athens. Because the Achaean mints were possibly closed from 1282 (the Sicilian Vespers) up until 1291-2 (Malloy p. 353) or 1293 cf Tzamalis, these deniers were probably minted between 1292/3-1297. By this time the city name begins to be spelled Clarencia, a departure from strictly Latin-sounding legends in an appeal to the Greek population. It is possible that only this series has a lower weight, probably to keep a parity to the deniers of Thebes and Athens. The triangular shape of the spire (Δ) in the design of the chateau tournois suggests the primary mint (Glarentza?) the regular DE CLARENCIA reverse legend instead of the D ' CLARENCIA and the privy marks inside the legends (the : and ꞏ positioned as stops) suggest an unlisted variation of Malloy 14.
@ominus1, it always struck me as one of those funly freakily anachronistic things that the kings of Cyprus continued to claim Jerusalem past the fall of Constantinople.
Wow, @seth77, I sure never knew that. ...The kings of Cyprus were still Lusignan as late as this, right? It would be interesting to find out how that happened, dynastically as well as otherwise.
By this time Jacques was a soldier of fortune who, as an illegitimate child, conquered Cyprus from his half-sister Charlotte de Lusignan and her husband Louis de Savoia. Historian George Boustronios considers that these coins were the first minted under Jacques authority during his conquest of Cyprus, when he had no means to pay for his campaign and expenses, so his army (made vastly from Egyptian soldiers of Mamluk sultan Sayf ad-Din Inal) had to scrap for copper fittings on private houses and baths to gather the metal which was then used to strike these coins. Pretty much rock bottom.
Some great coins shown!.... Here's a little Kashmir coin (They are one of my passions)......A simple common Kalasa coin but this one has a full obverse legend, quite difficult to find!... Kalasa 1076-1089 AD (1st Lohara dynasty) Copper Kaserah 19mm (5.76gr) Obverse- Goddess Ardochsho/Lakshmi seated facing in half lotus position, with Nagari legend 'Ka to left 'lasara' to right. Reverse- King standing facing and sacrificing at altar holding trident, with Nagari legend 'jadeva' bottom right. Nice full legend coin.
...Yipes.... Thanks for that. ...For history, especially apart from the extreme west, I progressively lose traction with every century from the 13th. Fascinating, at least on a wildly subjective level, how it just kept going, on or at least from the existing trajectories. ...Mamluks as mercenaries! What would Edward I say?
Needing this. I could see the consonance with Indian coins to the south, and even Ceylon, but I'd never heard of the series, or the polity. For this period, the Wiki article has less about the political than the religious history. --Which is fascinating, in terms of the syncretism between Hinduism and Buddhism. ...Wow.
A good mnemonic is the Latin, 'Jacobus.' ...It's fun how modern languages, including German as well as Romance ones (...and English), part ways from the Latin names. Favorite example is the German 'Ludwig' and the French 'Louis.' They took the Latin 'Ludovicus,' and more or less divided it down the middle.