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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;dougsmit, post: 8159101, member: 19463&quot;]I hesitate to post anything serious here but this thread has pointed out something I had never noticed before that seem quite obvious.&nbsp; Many Sasanian drachms, certainly Khusro II, show the beard of the king indicated by a group of dots with the bottom row cut in the die so as to make that border more bold and raised on the coin.&nbsp; When the coin gets some wear or when the strike was on the weak side, that border row set of dots merges together into a solid line.&nbsp; I&#039;ll add two coins that show intermediate stages.&nbsp; Well struck and unworn coins like the one shown by Al Kowsky have nicely separated dots.&nbsp; My first below shows separate dots near the chin but merged ones back on the jowl.&nbsp; My second one shows the entire border merged into a solid line.&nbsp; The coin that started this discussion has that line worn down even with the face leaving only the interior beard dots which now look like teeth in a clean shaven ghoul. There is a lot of weakness in other obverse&nbsp; details on this coin.&nbsp; It is hard for me to understand how the reverse faces are so detailed.&nbsp;&nbsp; Note in particular my last coin shows protruding lips above the beard and a wavy top line which I take to be the moustache long and swept back.&nbsp; Some of what we see in all these coins is from differences in style as cut by the various mints but some of it is caused by either striking differences or wear patterns. My coin of the MY mint has a weak reverse and better obverse while the Parthicus coin is the opposite.&nbsp; I had never noticed that the border row of beard dots was cut differently from the infill dots but it shows on most of the coins posted to this thread. Khusru II was king for a long time and used a large number of mints each with its own style.&nbsp; A &#039;complete&#039; collection of his coins would be hundreds (or more?) variations.&nbsp; As it is, his coins are almost a joke since they outnumber all the other Sasanian kings combined and many of us prefer &#039;one per ruler&#039; sets. I like Sasanian coins but have never made the necessary commitment to their study that would make me comfortable reading the legends or learning the style characteristics associated with the mints.&nbsp; They are hard avoiding duplicates to buy since many dealers differ in how they read the mints and even the &#039;experts&#039; differ on how to read some of the script.&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; </p><p>[ATTACH=full]1423865[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=full]1423866[/ATTACH][/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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