Featured A fleeting view of Athens as realm of the Frankokratia

--See how cool you are?!? Frankly, I'm not surprised. :<}

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

The style of this coins caught my eye in the last minutes of the auction and with no time to research, I put the bids and won one lot of the four. I have only Malloy and Metcalf and at the first glance on the legend it looks like denier minted in Athens , but I can’t find the match and the style is different from the deniers from Athens . I don’t have the coin in my hands yet, but according from the seller description my coin weighs 1.2 grams ( seems little bit heavy) and 0.7 grams three other ones.

GVIDVXATENIS
THEBANICIVIS



1. my coin

2.


3.


4.

 

@VD76, it looks from here as if you did very well. From my (see you and raise, regarding available references) 1st, 1994 ed. of Malloy, the legends correspond to p. 391, #107; an imitation of Gui of Athens, assigned to "Types in the name of the Duchy of Athens, possibly Florentine Dukes of Athens, 1388-94" (p. 390). Without checking, I'm assuming the chronological range corresponds to the Florentine dukes, on the same, tentative level as the initial attribution. Under the entry for #107, Malloy adds that "possibly they date from the late fourteenth or early fifteenth century."

The lettering style, especially with the 'Lombardic' letter "E" --along with the more generalized fineness of the engraving, only especially of the legends-- is saying 14th century to me, loud and clear. Beyond that, I couldn't tell you anything besides that it's likely to postdate Gui II's own issues, by however many or relatively few decades. ...Malloy's section on earlier imitations, no less tentatively assigned to Catalan dukes (1311-88) would be another place to look (pp. 389-90).
No doubt in my mind that @seth77 will have more informed and intelligent things to say on this! Malloy is clearly symptomizing the limits of available research (not to mention examples), as of the publication date.

 

I think they are Acciaioli coinage from ca. 1388-90 -- the look of the alloy and the gothic lettering match very well with the specimen I posted here on March 1st 2020.

My hunch is that these billon tornesi from the Acciaioli were meant to circulate in Italy also, as it had happened for the earlier coinages of Athens and Achaea after Guillaume de Villehardouin entered Angevin vassality. After 1400 the coinage seems to become copper and strictly local, and copper tornesi seem to be imported from Italy as late as the 1460s-1470s (the tornesi of Nicola di Monforte), so even after Ottoman conquest.

 

New coin arrived yesterday . Not sure what it is . Possibly another Florentine Dukes denier . THEBANICIVIS ???

17mm/0.6 g.

 

I was watching that one too. Probably so, J. Baker in his latest book Coinage and Money in Medieval Greece 1200-1430 assigns all these copper coins of Athens to the Catalan domination. I have them put here under the Acciaioli rule following Seltman's notes in Mints, Dies and Currency (1971).

 

Another one of these later imitations/immobilizations that Seltman assigned to the Florentines at Acrocorinth and Baker attributes to the late Catalan period:

 

Thanks, @seth77. This whole thread has been an epiphany. A textbook example of an entire historical context whose cultural significance is all out of proportion to its undeserved obscurity.

 

I'm considering doing a similar feature on the Principality of Achaea.

 

It would certainly be enlightening for me! I always wondered how the Frankish presence in that part of the world held on as long as it did ...and knew nothing, until your posts, about its relatively immediate aftermath.

 

I just won this coin:


It appears to be one of the very rare early experimental issues of Guillaume de la Roche in 1285 - in particular Tzamalis GR102. (Though there are two pellets in the legend on the reverse where Tzamalis notes one pellet. Weight is 0.95g.)

The arches on the reverse caught my eye as somewhat odd, but without this thread I never would have been able to figure it out! Thanks @seth77.

 

@Severus Alexander, Congratulations on winning this!!! I won something on the same auction (an OP might ensue), but I was looking at it, especially in light of what you said about the issue being experimental (granted, as such, later than the range of my usual collecting).
The chatel /tournois motif is a substantive variation, even for Frankish Greece, that I for one had never seen before. I wound up saying, 'No, don't bid against someone who knows more about what they're looking at than you do.' I'm really glad you landed it.

 

Thanks for allowing it to stay low! I was prepared to go somewhat higher but not higher than what I regarded as bargain territory. The only other example I've found is in this recent group lot. (Somebody got quite a sweet deal there, despite the generally high prices in that auction.) Congrats on your own win - hopefully I wasn't bidding against you. (I bid on a couple Byzantine coins but no luck.)

 

Rest yourself easy, it was a Cilician Armenian for which, in the absence of Narcessian (online ...anybody?), I'm still trying to confirm the attribution.
...And it's That Cool that you got it!

 

Congrats on a very worthy addition @Severus Alexander -- I also had it in my watchlist but alas real life and other items took precedence. Now I'm glad I did not pursue it

 

Wow, I really did get lucky with this one! And to think I believed it had escaped the eagle eyes of other CoinTalkers. Hah! (We’re pretty great, it seems. ) Thanks, @seth77!

 

I keep my eye out for any interesting tournois, and even if I don't buy, I'm usually aware. Your coin is interesting not just as an early tournois of Athens, but it shows the amount of Genoese influence that Guillaume seemed willing to perpetuate, even as a nominal vassal to the Prince of Achaea, which was (also) an Angevin fief. In 1285 Charles d'Anjou died and his heir was in Aragonese imprisonment, which could provide some of the context for Guillaume's decision to mint billon denier tournois -- practically going for a degree of autonomy that might not have happened otherwise. Tl;dr -- not only is your coin rare, it's also historically significant.

 

My favourite combo. Thanks for the additional info!