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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Alex22, post: 3570060, member: 102942&quot;]Dear All,</p><p><br /></p><p>I have recently pulled the trigger and acquired a Tigranes II (The Great) bronze coin. Have always looked for a good quality, but an affordable coin from the Armenian Kingdom (and short-term Armenian Empire during the reign of Tigranes II). The look of the coin is below (using the original photo from CGB France, where I bought it from).</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]950502[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p><i><b>Specimen A.</b> Tigranes II (The Great) copper coin, 89-69 BC, Tigranocerta mint (based on the filedmarks), <b>20mm, 12h, 5.96g</b>. Obverse: head of Tigranes II right, wearing Armenian flapped five-pointed tiara, decorated with 8-pointed star between two eagles. Reverse: BAΣIΛEΩΣ BAΣIΛEΩN TIΓPANOY, Tyche seated right, holding palm, below, river-god swimming right, letter A above the river god, and TP monogram above the hand of Tyche. Dark green (almost black) patina.</i></p><p><br /></p><p>The coin (let&#039;s call it <b>specimen A</b>) arrived yesterday. It felt much better than the picture above, and I was very inspired to write about the coin and the history it represents.</p><p><br /></p><p>However, there is more to this coin that I need to find out with your help before turning to the former pleasures. Very quickly I realized that the coin is definitely <b>obverse die linked</b> to another coin that CGB has in offer. That second coin is brought below.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]950512[/ATTACH] </p><p><i><b>Specimen B.</b> Analogous coin, obverse die linked to the coin <b>A</b>. This coin has the following metrics: <b>18.5mm, 12h, 6.69g</b>.</i></p><p><br /></p><p>The match of the obverses is especially clear when you look at the arrangement of the dots and the 5 spikes of the tiara. A figure to outline the similarities is below.</p><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: center">[ATTACH=full]950514[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>To become absolutely sure in this, I also took the outline of my coin and transferred to the image of the second one. All the dots of the circle completely match each other, with all their intricacy of the arrangement.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]950517[/ATTACH] </p><p><br /></p><p>I called CGB, and they told me that both coins (<b>A</b> and <b>B</b>) did not belong to the same person. So the things became interesting, and I started to look for all the coins that <i>acsearch</i> returns for Tigranes II. A few hours later I found a coin (<b>Specimen C</b>) that seems to be a complete <b>die duplicate to Specimen B</b>.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]950534[/ATTACH] </p><p><i><b>Specimen C.</b> Complete die duplicate of <b>Specimen B</b>. The only metric brought for this Gerhard Hirsch Nachfolger coin is for its size: <b>19mm</b>.</i></p><p><br /></p><p>The figure below outlines the anchoring point to recognize the similarities between <b>B</b> and <b>C</b>, reverse and obverse. Please, also note the relative intricate angles between the vertical texts <i>BAΣIΛEΩΣ and BAΣIΛEΩN</i>.</p><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: center"> [ATTACH=full]950558[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>Now, I am still researching the ~1700 coins in the database (interestingly, found numerous die duplicates between other Tigranes types too), but being a beginner in this area, this leaves me a bit puzzled...</p><p><br /></p><p>Is it actually this easy to find die linked coins or die duplicates? A beginner buys a coin <b>A</b> and within a day finds an obverse die linked coin <b>B</b> and a coin <b>C</b> that is a complete die duplicate of coin <b>B</b>. Isn&#039;t this a cause of concern? Should I return the coin? Will much appreciate your expertise/insight and advice on this. I will myself add more data as I go through the other coin images.</p><p><br /></p><p>Thank you so much for your help,</p><p>Alex[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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