I picked this up on whim, because it was 50% off and I thought it was Greco-Bactrian. And of course it was another cool, fat coin. It looks like the planchet was chiseled out of thick sheet of bronze. After investigating, I found that it is actually a Precursor to the Greco-Bactrian coin I thought it was. I found this interesting note on Bob Reis's website: INDIA,post-punchmarked municipal coins. The Mauryan-Sunga empire shrank in the 2nd century BC, leaving the outlying provinces to their own devices. Some of them were swallowed up by invaders like the Greeks. Actually all of them fell to this or that conqueror eventually. But some managed to hold on and run their affairs on their own for a time. Pushkalavati (Peshawar), for example, was run by its commercial guilds (modern term: "banks") for a while. These entities struck a series of municipal copper coins that became the model for the square Greek bronzes after those guys conquered the region.
That is a nice example of a type that seems to appeal to many of us. Did you notice the difference between my last coin and all the others shown here? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sauwastika
these are pretty cool, this was my first indo-greek coin. i wish it had some patina on it, i probably would have passed on it today because of that and waited for one with a nice green patina. oh well.
