Had a marathon imaging and measuring session with my Indo-Sassanian coins yesterday, and had to share this one! Indo-Sassanian AR Damma Early (Chavada?) type Finn 1.2.3 (Intermediate type, no eye line) 19mm, 2.83g It escaped my notice both when buying the coin and until I noticed the abnormally low weight (more than a gram under the lower end typical of this series) but this coin carries two countermarks - a grouping of three dots at 7:00 and a cross within a circle at 5:00. The coin is much more circulated than typical, but that alone can't account for the weight. For comparison, this one weighs 3.93g compared to a theoretical ~4.15g weight standard My theory? The top coin was struck on an underweight planchet and certified to circulate at nominal face value, which it did as merchants played hot potato with the thing to avoid being stuck with "bad money" and losing a gram of silver should it cease to be worth anything more than its silver content. I have two other countermarked Gadhaiya coins, but only one imaged so far Despite the wear, this one still weighs a respectable 3.7g I'm hoping to someday figure out approximately when the marks were placed on the coin and by whom, but I fear that is a long shot - kingdoms of the time seemed to be more interested in melting foreign coins for seignorage than certifying them for circulation.
Is there any literature about this? And do you know of any contemporary coins from different dynasties with c/ms like these?
Very interesting Finn!....The C/Ms look like 'crescent moon -star-HA-sun'? Do any of your countermarked coins have similar symbols?...Paul
@Pellinore this is sadly uncharted territory within Indian numismatics. Maheshwari's Imitations in Continuity is the only book that gives more than a glancing overview to these, but he doesn't make any mention of countermarks, and I don't recall seeing any in his plates - I'll have to double check. I have been buying/researching these coins for almost 3 years, and the only three c/m coins I've ever seen have gone up for sale in the past four months. These coins were the product of a relative dark age for India after the fall of the Gupta (and Harsha) and under the shadow of the Muslim invaders. They were probably contemporary to the "Sri Ha" types, and maybe the Pratiharas up until the time of Bhoja. Other than the Indo-Sassanian coins, the only silver in circulation in India were small ~1g coins in Sindh and among the Rashtrakutas to the south. To the best of my understanding, these coins were made much like the Maria Theresa thalers - capitalizing on a recognized design motif to mint bullion trade coins that were design-frozen for centuries. @Spaniard, I have one more with the smaller star. I'm hoping to get that one imaged soon, too. The only other countermarked Indian coins I have are of the Kshatrapas, and then later Rupees. Heck, it isn't inconceivable that at least one of the countermarks was applied during the Islamic dynasties, since apparently these things still circulate in rural areas: http://www.mrbrklyn.com/indo-Sassanian.html
This sort of countermarking was of course very common on middle period Maghada/Mauryan coins, and again much later on Bengal tankas. As Finn235 says, it is pretty rare on Indo-Sasanid. Its more common on Western Satraps. I suppose its possible the c/m's were added much later - but personally - I doubt it. More likely it was just a local fad that did not much take off in the I-S case - I would guess From Rogers (Charles J. Rogers, Coins Collecting in Northern Indian) its seems many very old coins passed sluggishly through the hands of Indian money changers in the 19th century. Actually there was a guy in my class at school, many years ago now, whose father ran a betting shop. I recall he had all sorts of rather old coins that impecunious punters had turned up with, even in the UK around the 1960's
