was just wondering if anyone knew of auction houses with a lot of islamic coins. i know of stephen album and spanish auction houses for coins from al-andalus, but wanted to hear of others. i'm specifically looking for medieval arabic coins
It's not my main area, but a lot of the British auction houses have at least a minor specialty in them: DNW, Spink, Balwdin's. (CNG also regularly has at least a small section of medieval Islamic coins.) I think this Islamic coin (Turkoman, Artuqids of Mardin) is my only purchase from DNW. Tim Wilkes, author of Islamic Coins and Their Values is on the staff there. This coin was a "plate coin" (1203) in vol 1, and a number of others were sold in the same auction (I'm still mad at myself for not getting 1 or 2 of the AV Dinars!): (Wilkes has the obv/rev switched, so maybe I should be following his lead, given that he literally "wrote the book" on it!)
Stephen Album is the only one I know of who specializes in Islamic. Most auction houses will have small assortments of Islamic coins from time to time, but the ones that specialize in Greek and Roman (i.e. most American and European ones) will usually gravitate toward special rarities or figural coins as those appeal to their target demographic. Ebay I think is a decent source, actually. I used to watch a seller by the name of "Amorepiccino" who specialized 50/50 in Roman and Parthian/Sassanian/Islamic coins. He had some decent stuff but usually nothing too obscure.
I got hooked from a posting on coin talk a year or two ago. No one auction house has been a source, but numerous auction houses have had a few examples for auction. Most notable is BIGA , seems to be a newer auction house on biddr.ch. and I have gotten a few from Roma and Nomo.
Steve Album has monthly online auctions, and he is a well known specialist in Islamic coinage. There's also a dealer on VCoins, who you might know, Sphinx Numismatics, based in Canada, and another, Wayne Sayles.
