Spotted this one on sale on ebay about a month ago and won it without too much competition India, Malwa region ca 13-14th century BI dramma 13mm, 3.75g Omkara type, OM ॐ only (engraved backwards), JA behind head, stylized conch replaces eye Maheshwari T2/2, Finn 1.9.1.1 Perhaps the most coveted of the late Gadhaiya types from Malwa, this type boasts the finest engraving and best workmanship of the series. This one is remarkable for two reasons: 1. It is both more coppery in appearance and about 0.6g too light, indicating that it could possibly be a fourree core, or at least struck in the wrong alloy. 2. The OM ॐ is engraved backwards, if the fire altar is oriented correctly (as shown) or at least upside down. There are many variants to the OM calligraphy, but no recorded example shows it completely backwards. Compare to a more typical example of the type: I know there are a few of these floating out there- let's see them!
Hope you won't mind if I "follow" you - seems you are interested in these types of coins. I would like to learn more and will go read your other posts and eyeball your coin photographs when I get a little chunk of time. Thank you for posting this beautiful and interesting coin.
With apologies, @Finn235, all there is to do is to repeat your shout-out to @Muhammad Niazi, who has your level of fluency in languages which are vaguely (--Please, consider the source!) in this neighborhood. ...Except, it really made me sit up in my chair, to see the level of stylization of the Sassanian prototypes, in what, for some of us, is a profoundly horizon-expanding chronological and geographic context. ...Where this sort of phenomenon is concerned, I start to think that some of the wonder, even on an esthetic level, is how motifs travelled such distances, both of time and place. Remaining significant, on one level or another. (--Cultural?Economic? Both?). In this sort of context, 'stylization' is very emphatically a 'value-neutral' term --as you seem to broadly imply (!). Eurocentric collectors get the Celtic and early medieval series for similar effects.
@Finn235..Very interesting!.......Hmmmm...I saw this one and nearly went for it!... Really reminiscent of retrograde lettering in the fields of LRBs.... Along with the reversed OM the most intriguing feature of the coin for me is the very low silver content (if any?). The style of engraving is really well executed and makes it a fascinating piece...... One thing for sure it's in the right collection!! Congrats on a really cool pick up! I don't possess a single Om, so here's my OMKARA
Thanks all! I believe I had actually imaged most of my Omkara types on my old phone, but didn't migrate the pictures over to my new one - I'll have to grab those sometime and I can give a proper in-depth analysis sometime - they are truly fascinating because the symbols give is objective, discrete types to work with. And @LaCointessa, I am always happy to drag another down my own personal rabbit hole! A while back I did a high level overview of the types evolution from an official Peroz drachm through the various Gadhaiya types (track 1) - this is a good place to start if you are confused about the symbolism and development of this series: https://www.cointalk.com/threads/indo-sassanian-the-evolution-of-the-gadhaiya-paisa.348516/
This is a really interesting find! Congrats on it! I've seen the term retrograde used for reversed scripts like this. When I was studying the tin pitis of Palembang it is common to find contemporary counterfeit retrograde types (the entire design is retrograde or only certain words/portions) and it was said that it was due to the counterfeiters having a poor understanding of the minting process and either not knowing or not caring enough to engrave the dies backwards so that the imprint would read the correct way. Being as your example is both underweight and visibly more copper than normal, I think it's likely yours was an unofficially produced coin.
Mint master: "My goodness, grasshopper! You've engraved the sacred syllable backwards!" Apprentice die-cutter: "Oops... Oh well, no one will notice, right?" Mint master: "Let us hope so, grasshopper, but it would serve you right if your mistake was still talked about 800 years from now!"
