Sasanian Empire: silver drachm of Khosrow II, struck ca. 615-616 AD

@Parthicus.......Wow that's a lovely bronze!
Nice central strike with good detail!......The bronzes are an area I'd like to move into so if it's ok I'd like to pick your brain in the near future.?

 

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My Khusro II. Not my area of expertise, I just liked the coin.

Experts who can comment on the mint, please do.

 

Mint looks like WYHC - Uncertain site...
Regnal year 18

 

That's a very nice example, @lordmarcovan. Congrats! Nice silver and good strike. You're lucky to have the mint and date attribution. You're way ahead of me there!

I'm quite happy with mine. I got it because of its clear strike with few dead spots. Getting a strike without dead spots on a wafer-thin flan can be tricky.
I tried to find out mint and year on mine, compared it to the table of known mints, but couldn't find a satisfactory match. So I'm still struggling there (blame it on my poor Pahlavi). According to the seller, mine's a year 16. For now, I'll have to take his word for it.

 

@Ignoramus Maximus.....Mint looks like GW - Goyman
Reg year looks right.

 

Thank you, @Spaniard.
Looks like it took you one minute to find what I couldn't find in an hour of searching!

 

Yours:


Mine is by far the lesser example:


I have seen quite a few Sasanian coins that were holed and plugged (like mine) so roughly that I believe it was done in antiquity rather than by collectors. My fantasy is that it was done at the mint to correct coins considered too light for release but I have not studied this enough to call it a theory. My coin also weighs 4.1g. Did the Sasanians weight adjust coins individually more than some authorities. The LD 25 on grifterec both have later countermarks which may explain their lighter weight. Mention is also made of small test scrapes which might lower weights of 'fat' coins. I know nothing. Anyone?
http://grifterrec.rasmir.com/sasania/sas_khuII_6.html


It was mentioned that Khushru II coins are the most common. Is it going too far to say there are as many of his coins as there are all other Sasanians? Anyone else have this book?
https://www.abebooks.com/Sasanian-Coins-sylloge-national-museum-Iran/30783669129/bd
Anyone want mine (both volumes)? These are overkill for my interest level.

 

What a great freaking thread. No, there Aren't enough of them, even here, for the whole series. Thanks, @lordmarcovan, for getting the ball rolling, and for everyone else's erudition.

Back to the initial protagonist, I'm getting Lots of traction with your protestation of ignorance about the series ...being very resonantly on your page about this. (Gobl notwithstanding --unless, with the attendant dialectic between user-hostile navigation, and the level of accuracy that you can expect, you wanted to call him 'Exhibit A.') It's no less true of other stuff that I'm actively collecting. At a certain point, the element of mystery gets its own, inherent esthetic value.
In spite of which, with Lots of help from people who know more about the series, by orders of magnitude, I've wound up with more examples than I have pictures of. (Other than the ones that have been posted over, what, the past month.)
Except that, if you feel the need for a historical overview, en anglais, there's this.
...My two cents, for what they're worth. And that's all the fat lady wrote.
https://www.booksamillion.com/p/Sas...ryaee/9781780763781?id=8300254841044#overview

 

It really is in some ways a model of concision; I could compare it to what Isaac Asimov did, once upon a time, in his brilliant two-part juvenile history of Rome. You really feel like you got something in the way of a basic narrative outline. The author is ethnically Persian, teaching history in California; you get the sense he had a very good idea of how to go about this in the most expeditious way.
Apart from the political history --heavy on geopolitics, both west and east-- he focusses on pretty much everything else you would want to know about first; administration, economic and religious dynamics, language --all of which are a fascinating counterbalance to the late Roman -Byzantine contexts. For an overview, it's pretty impressive. Wish it was more widely available. ...Alas, you'll probably be waiting a while for the audiobook, but who knows?