Here’s an interesting coin that came in a lot I got recently. It’s a Parthian style coin, but there’s no way it’s an official issue; take a look at the nose on the portrait! The reverse is the seated archer type, but it is struck in retrograde. I see a trace of monogram on the right. Anyone ever seen one like this, or have any idea where it might be from? There were some official issues in my lot as well, and I might post those later, but this one has a special charm. I don’t see many Parthians around here in general, so give them some love on this thread! 15mm, 3.54g
Neat pickup, SeptimusT. That's an especially crude rendition of the king and archer - which, in my world, adds to the cool factor. These AE's from the eastern Parthian frontier are not my area of expertise, but looks to me like it could be cataloged as a variant (based on the archer facing left) of a Sellwood 93.5 (Sanabares) and, additionally, a Koch Group 6 variant. You can add to that: Shore 478 variant. The Koch reference is Heidemarie Koch's A Hoard of Coins from Eastern Parthia. I defer to Parthicus and others on my cataloging suggestion here. The Group 6 coins have what Koch refers to as the "Vologases symbol" behind the archer, which is seen on the right reverse of yours. It's monogram #83 in Shore's book, which he refers to as the "royal dynastic symbol of the Arsakids." Both Sellwood and Koch have the mint as Margiane. Yours also appears to have an obverse countermark at the bottom. Fyi, Shore has these as official, though crude, 2nd century issues from the eastern regions of the kingdom. Sellwood had them as 1st century issues of a secessionist state. Personally I think they are probably not official Parthian emissions, and I think they copy imperial coinage such as, in this case, the Sellwood 78.12 of Vologases III (thus making them 2nd century, as Shore suggests). But, really, I dunno...
