A coin from an obscure series

Really weird stuff, but at the time I had to have it.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

I think the people who made these coins are called the Chach

 

Another type. The signs on the reverse may identify different rulers.

 

This coin also comes from Central Asia. It is clearly related to Chinese coins.

 

This coin shows a horse under an object that looks like a wheel.

 

"Chach" is a place. It's an oasis. This place's name later changes to "Shash", and then to "Tashkent". Wikipedia says both "Shash comes from the Turkic name Tash - outer, kand - town, that is, 'outer town'" and "'Tashkent' means "stone city".

The writing is Sogdian, and it is likely the people who made it were Sogdian inhabitants of Chach.

 

Thanks for the information. I should have long done some research on these coins. I even have the book by Shagalov and Kuznetzov "Catalogue of coins of Chach III - VIII AD."

Apparently, the coin below belongs to Group 4, Type 2 (no. 126). The reading of the legend is disputed, but the coin dates to the middle of the 7th century. It may have been minted under a ruler named Kan-Tutun (640-660):

 

Reading this thread, and seeing the OP coin, made me remember of an obscure coin (at least to me) that I've never been able to attribute properly (read "at all")

It's 13 mm and 0,90 gr. the animal on the obverse might well be a deer. I'm not certain about the orientation of the reverse though



Q

 

I could find it easy to keep adding to this thread....here a 16th century coin of Transoxiana.

"The Shaybanids were an Uzbek dynasty based in Samarqand and Bukhara, deriving their name from a genealogical history purportedly tying them to the early Islamic Shaybanid Arabs. Their silver coinage closely followed Timurid prototypes, similar to tankas of Sultan Husayn and his immediate successors, and perpetuated the tanka denomination for another century...[SKIP]...The nadir of production quality was reached during the long reign of Iskandar, whose tankas are typically struck 50% flat or worse."
-S. Album (2011), Checklist of Islamic Coins, 3rd Edition

Here is a coin from this nadir of production quality - a rare and surprisingly high quality coin (only ~33% flat).
Shaybanid, Iskandar Bahadur Khan, 1561-1583 BCE, AR Tanka, Balkh mint, 26mm, 4.51g
Obv: Kalima and names of Caliphs around
Rev: Name of the ruler in ornamental cartouche, other titles (al-Malik al-Adilal-Khaqan) around, Khallada Allah… below with mint-name Balkh
Ref: Album 2990

 

These fall in the group 'any reverse detail is great'.