I am not collecting ancients and know pretty much nothing about their grading. I got this coin recently, basically for free, and would appreciate if any ancient collectors around here could help with a few questions. As far as I understand, this is a Hasmonean prutah from Alexander Jannaeus period, 102 BC, from Judaea, AE13. Am I right? What is the exact grade for this coin? What is the realistic value this coin would sell on open auction on eBay, considering a reputable seller is offering it? I see some go for around $10, some sold for above $30. Whats is its catalog value? Are there any damage issues or is it "gradable"?
Taxidermist => here is an e-bay link to a bunch of kinda similar examples: http://www.ebay.com/sch/sis.html?_kw=JUDAEA+Alexander+Jannaeus+Prutah+Hebrew+Widows+Mite+469 It is a bit hard to tell what it could be worth? (looks like $20-$50?) ... I guess it depends upon how much somebody wants to pay for it, right? I have an example of a prutah, but it is a slightly different style-type than your OP example ... Alexander Jannaeus AE Prutah (Widow’s Mite) Date: 103-76 BC Diameter: 13.0 mm Weight: 1.1 gr Obverse: Anchor Reverse: Star of eight rays
I see the OP coin as better than many and quite collectible but it still has the common faults of its type. The letters that appear are clearly readable (better than average) but only half the flan is well struck which particularly confuses the double cornucopia. Would you prefer a coin with better cornucopia detail and fewer letters? Is the prominent casting sprue a nice feature or would you rather have a rounder coin? These things don't grade neatly like modern coins. Opinions matter in the market only when they are accompanied by a sale. Below are three similar but different coins (all Jannaeus varieties, I believe). Which of our coins is a $10 and which is a $50 is a matter of opinion. I agree with Steve's pricing range but it really is a matter of who is buying and who is selling.
Steve, yours is a lepton, not a prutah. The widow's mite was a lepton, half a prutah. The original bibles in greek even used the word "lepta" as the coin description. Taxidermist, yours is a nice specimen, but then again Iike casting sprues. Some people don't. I would believe $10-20 would be a fair price for this prutah, and you might do a little better. Btw, I see no abnormal issues for this coin. They usually come like this. Your obverse is the worst side, with the reverse being better than average. Centering on yours is actually quite good, and this can be a major rpoblem with these coins. I have some leptons that maybe have 20% of the design on the flan.
Thanks stevex6, thanks a lot for the information dougsmit, medoraman. Even the fact I live pretty much where these coins circulated back then is not enough to make me interested, I`m into 19th century to modern periods. Considering sold eBay lots, I`ll mark this as at least $20 coin. The lot I purchased some time ago was $15.50, this coin came with it, think it was a good deal.
=> thanks medoraman ... you seem to know more about these lil' babies than the rest of the coin-planet (awesome job ... thanks for the info)
David Hendin knows more about these than anyone on the planet, I just read his books. A quick shortcut to be able to identify the two is the lepton were the only ones with the "wheel" reverse, while only prutah have the writing on the reverse. That is my quick identification guide for Hasmoneans.
I agree with the above. I'm not so agreeable with this part. I see the terms used more interchangeably with prutah being any big coin and lepton being the crude little things of whatever style. I do not understand the matter but as evidence I'll point out the following vCoin seller who has wheel type prutah. http://www.vcoins.com/en/stores/amp...e_asc&countitems=24&changeDisplayList=&page=1 Before you upprice all your coins you might want to realize that most of those offered here are either rare varieties or full legend examples. The seller does offer cheap junk via eBay as well. My three shown above came from him as part of a bulk lot of eight prutah I bought a couple years ago (for about $50). He still sells lots starting at under a dollar a coin (not very nice ones at a dollar). http://www.ebay.com/sch/amphoracoin..._DefaultDomain_0&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2562 Currently he is offering a real junk lot of 101+ anchor/star coins about which he says, "All coins (except a rare odd stray) are small prutah denomination with obverse: anchor, reverse: star." I'll also point out that this seller (Amphoracoins) has a huge price range for what many/most would see as the same coin. He prices by grade and minor variety. If you are willing to pay a huge price for just any coin because it was mentioned in the Bible, you might want to buy one of these lots and give away the 100 worst ones. I'm not a collector of these but every so often I have to fight the urge to buy a bunch and see how many I can ID.
Curious? ... ummm, so is this a prutah? => I'm now a bit rattled regarding what's a Prutah and what's a Lepton!! Herod Agrippa I AE Prutah Date: 41-42 AD Diameter: 17.2 mm Weight: 2.5 grams Obverse: Canopy, legend around Reverse: Three ears of grain
That one is a coin issued under Roman command. They never made leptons after the Hasmonean dynasties ended, so it could not possibly be a lepton. Btw Doug, yes, that was an interesting wheel and anchor. Very heavy for the issue. I have seen very rare ones listed as prutah, and my guess is due to the weight. There were such huge variations of the weight of both prutah and leptons, though, I have never really been very comfortable with that distinction. Maybe he is right, and i am just recalcitrant, but unless I see better proof than just weight, (and remember all of these bronzes were token coinages, the value of the bronze being irrelavent to its denomination), I am just leery of the argument. Actually I am seeing a huge inflation of these coins, with nearly everything nowadays being called a prutah. Problem is, the ancients knew there were two distinct denominations, and named them accordingly, but modern collectors seem to be lumping them together more and more. Maybe prutah is just cooler to say.
=> now you've got me spinnin' like a puppy chasin' its own tail!! I had both of today's coins listed as prutahs, but now you're telling me that I don't even own one prutah, let alone two prutahs (ummm, I realize that there is a plural for prutah, but I'm gonna let somebody else sound really smart) ... ... anyway ... So really? ... this 2nd example of mine is not a prutah either, but merely a generic, scraggly ol' Roman coin? (any idea what it's description might be?) thanks (the more I ask, the less I know about my coins ... *sigh*)
Its a coin of Herod Agrippa I, 37-44 AD Steve. So he ruled Israel in Rome's name, but as its client King, and issued prutah sized coins for the area. I am not sure if we know what local people called the coin, maybe they called it a prutah, but it was not a coin issued by the Hasmonean dynasty like the others.
http://www.amuseum.org/book/page5.html Another view calls the smaller coins that I might call lepta "half prutah". http://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=40325.0 Included in the above discussion is an interesting opinion that a thicker, rounded coin tends to be a prutah while a lepton tends to be ragged and struck on scrap metal of any shape. I know this does not hold for all cases but it is in keeping with my observation that there was some attempt made on larger coins to cast flans in a coin shape while the small ones were lozenge shaped or just ragged. This does not explain my square prutah but there will always be exceptions. I do not own a Jewish coin under 1.5g which I might consider the threshhold of being a lepton. I also find it strange that in David Hendin's many lots for sale on eBay as of today, only one uses the word lepton and it describes a group as containing both prutah and lepton size coins. I would be curious to see proof that all the coins were not intended to be one size and the small ones were unofficial rather like we later see with Barbarous Radiates. Hendin does say at one point in a description: "and it has been proven that they continued to circulate for up to 300-400 years after they were struck. " I have to wonder when some of the crude ones were struck. Were all made during the time of the design they bear?
Supposedly, quite a few hoards have been found and dated in the first and second century AD that contained well worn leptons. As to a half prutah, yeah, that is exactly what a leptons is. It's exactly one half of a prutah. It would be like calling a 5 cent piece a half dime, (well ok I know we did that a while ago).
That's fairly accurate for the particle physics definition as well, with a lepton being a fundamental building block of matter (e.g. a electron/muon/tau). A very appropriate name, considering the Greek definition of "fine, small, thin", chosen in 1948 over "nucleon". I always enjoy when interests align! Anyway, I digress Back to your regularly scheduled numismatic programming!
A few years back there was a thread pointing out that an inordinate number of people interested in physics were also collectors of ancient coins. We never did understand why.
