Ancient - BAY STATE SHOW - The BIG Find!

Its a Buddha Lifetime coin !!! That's Phat!!! Its like the ultimate Indian coin!

 

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The ancients threads are such a cuckoo's nest, I think the mods have thrown up their arms in resignation.

 

I'll admit also that I wouldn't have know what it was either without the info, but its an interesting acquisition!

 

I overheard one dealer describing ancientnoob's coin. He said that it is an example of the "independent times that coins were invented" in ancient times.

He said that coins were invented one time when someone in Lydia or Ionia struck some electrum into coins. He said coins were independently invented in China using a casting process. He said some folk in India independently began applying punch mark(s) to strips of metal. Ancientnoob's coin is one of these strips containing the punch marks.

What I really like about ancientnoob's coin is that it is a Buddha coin (from the time when prince Buddha was walking around). I once visited a large sleeping Buddha statue in Thailand. On the bottom of Buddha's feet was depicted everything. I'd post a photo here but those trip photos were taken with film.

 

I got the dealers business card. I intend on getting the"other" one.

 

I consider it an interesting question why the world eventually settled on what we now assume a coin should be. The Chinese cast shapes before they went round and held onto the idea that coins needed to have a hole for stringing while the other independent systems never considered that at all important. The Indian model used punchmarks with designs but made little effort for those marks to be legible and convey information. The Greek model was early to use designs for propaganda or information other than 'coin' but slow to decide the things should stack or even be sort of round. When two systems came together as when Alexander brought Greek coins to India, changes happened. Most collectors I have known pretty much stick to Greek system coins but this place on CT has more people interested in some others than I would expect. I never thought much about wanting a coin because it was 'lifetime Buddha' or some such reason but it is interesting that more than one here found that a reason to want a coin. Maybe we all should ask what it is about a coin that makes us want the thing. If I did that I might be better prepared to get rid of a few hundred coins that I'm less than deeply in love with.

 

I freely admit that I am "Shallow Hal" => I love collecting ancient coins that have great eye-appeal, oh and that have super-cool animals on 'em!!

... however, obviously the coin becomes far more alluring if it also has significant history and/or countermarks and/or other cool aspects which I might find intriguing!!

Bottom-line => coins rock!! (I'm glad that we all love/appreciate/collect in significantly different manners!!) ... and therefore, we kinda rock as well!!