A coin from an obscure series

Here is an obscure coin type:


18 mm (the firm I bought it from misdescribed it as 12 mm; I'm happy it was actually larger) and 1.54 grams.

Unless you saw this same coin in the auction I bought it from, I'll bet you have not seen one before. I doubt many collectors care at all about the series, and, really, I don't either! I bought it for the "rabbit". The only evidence I have that it is a rabbit is what I see; I have no book reference and neither did the seller. Maybe it is a donkey. Steve Album, the Islamic coin expert, is a friend and when I asked him about it he tentatively attributed it to the Golden Horde, Sultan Al-A'zan. They were originally Mongols and then Turkic in the 13th and 14th centuries north and east of the Black and Caspian seas. I think he could read the legend, but I have been unable to find a reference to that sultan (Maybe on the web it is not spelled that way?)

It has no "Album number." Steve told me that Golden Horde coinage has very many types and almost all the literature is in Russian and hardly known in the west. If anyone has anything they can contribute about this obscure type, chime in!

Every once in a while I acquire something really obscure. I don't know what to make of it. Why did I even bid? Well, I like to do research on types and series I don't know. This one may be a bit too extreme--I haven't found sources that would enable me to learn about it.

If you have something obscure to show, this would be a good thread for it.

 

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al-A'zan is not a name. It reads al-Sultan /al-a'zam, which just means "the great Sultan".
I do like the naive portrayal of the animal !

 

Thank you! That helps.

 

Very nice! I have personally never gotten much into Islamic coins, but I do have a handful of figural types.

One of my favorite related "obscure" coins that I sold a few years back to a more appreciative collector:

Probably Ilkhans, citing Abu Sa'id
AE Fals (with a ton of impurities that make it look billon)


Extremely rare, was able to find only one other
https://www.zeno.ru/showphoto.php?photo=214448

 

There are many varieties of anonymous Golden Horde coins with hares.

https://www.zeno.ru/showgallery.php?cat=1183

This one reminds me of yours, although it has the hare looking over its shoulder.

 

Nice one Finn ! Yours is in a better quality than Vic's. You might add it to his thread on WoC here: http://www.worldofcoins.eu/forum/index.php/topic,44262.0.html

 

Here's an Islamic coin from my old folders. I have four others of the same type but I don't know to what era they belong.

 

@7Calbrey Your coin is Ayyubid, al-malik al-Zahir Ghazi.

Adding another obscure central Asian goat:

 

I posted the following coin previously, but with no clues. Later I found out that it's a "Talsam". Talsam in Arabic means Mystery !

 

Yes, they are pretty obscure! Coin series from central Asia are unlikely to be collected or known to US collectors. For those of us who like historical connections, they lack desirable features. They are not artistic. We can't read the legends. We don't know the history of the rulers or even of the region--even if we know which rulers and region the coin is from, which we often don't. For example, the OP coin is not attributed to a particular ruler or region.

Maybe someday some Russian will write and illustrate a comprehensive work on central Asian coins and someone will translate it into English. (Don't hold your breath!)

 

The "talsam" coin is undoubtedly Mamluk by design.
As for those obscure areas: quite a lot of progress is still made every year in knowledge on these series. I like to be able to do some exploration of unknown territories, and it can be done cheaply from my armchair !

 

Some non-Islamic obscure series:

Unknown AE11, presumed to be Kushan-related due to the style of the reverse figure's clothing. Never seen anything remotely close to this one.


Another mystery AR hemiobol sold as "unknown Celtic". The seller had a few more that I regret not snagging, and I haven't seen any more since then


This one is known, but obscure
Parthian feudatories (pre-Indo Parthian)
Tanlis Mardates with wife Raggodeme AR drachm
AFAIK the only kingdom known from only a single denomination from only a single ruler, although similar countermarks appear on imitations of Parthian drachms.


The Satavahana empire (central India, 200 BC - 300 AD) is pretty obscure to most people, but how about a provincial coin of theirs, presumably from Banavasi - paper thin, with a gibberish legend and replacing the "Ujjain symbol" with a rosette of hollow circles

 

An interesting coin @Valentinian. I have quite a few coins that I like in the obscure category. This one perhaps obscure enough that only 2-3 similar show up in a search of "Narendra” on CT.
Hunnic Tribes, Alchon Huns, Narana-Narenda, Late 4th-early 5th century AD, Æ Drachm
Obv: Crowned bust right [holding palm and fruits?]
Rev: Incuse of obverse
Ref: M. 1444, Göbl, Hunnen Em. 150

 

I love this thread!!

I recently bought what I think is a related coin, an AE pul from the Golden Horde or the Giray Khans. Some of these (@THCoins links the page above) have two fish on them. This one appears to have three:

I'm not sure what the symbol on the reverse is, but it may be Giray.

An idea: this reminds me of the obscure series of small AEs from the Kashmir Smast caves, thought to be issued by an autonomous Kidarite/Hunnic group (see Nasim Khan, Coins of Kashmir Smast). I have this scorpion example:

All they issued were these little copper coins, and many had Kushan related images - there's a huge variety!

To add something from Central Asia:

Chach, 2nd to 4th c. CE - Head of ruler left / Tamga with two dots and Sogdian legend around. This may have been issued by the Kangchu; on zeno, some of these are attributed to a ruler called 'Wanwan' (from reading the Sogdian legend).

 

@Finn235 Your (post-)Kushan specimen likely is one from this category:

This specimen is about the same size as yours also.

 

There's an idea- Which ruler is that? It's on the tip of my tongue but I can't remember offhand.

On a related note, I also found this one, similarly sized but much cruder- I have it as "Imitative post Kushan"

 

The Kashmir Smast coins are incredibly interesting, that scorpion type is amazing! Does the obverse have script? I really like the scorpion image on that.

 

Thanks! It's unclear what's on the obverse, but it doesn't seem to be script. Maybe a mountain? The only other scorpion example I've seen is this one:

It's not clear what that is either, or if it is the same type.

Here's a short article on these coins.

 

I have never seen a coin like the one above. Is it possible, that it is from Central Asia, i.e. Uzbekistan for instance?


I have a bunch of obscure coins from that region. The best of the lot is these two - same type, but different dies

 

Here is another one, showing some kind of animal: