How far back do we define coins as ancient?

1927

http://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces45124.html

 

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Well, I don´t have any in my collection. In fact, I had to double check what I said, and they were cast (not hammered) until 1945 (which, in any case would fit in the topic of "when do we stop calling them ancients?" since its the same process they used for centuries). Then they began machine minting with dies. Sorry for the previous misinformation.

 

Just a thought...

If it's "ancient", then doesn't it strictly abide by time designations as understood by historians? Wikipedia refers to ancients as the time of early man all the way to the Post-Classical era or the early middle ages. Technological changes and methods can evolve or even stagnate. However, even, say, a hypothetical "modern" screw pressed coin that were developed by the Ancient Greeks would be considered ancient, right? They'd simply be ahead of their time. Additionally, thousands of years from now, we may be considered "ancient".

If one is a "type" collector like I am, then that's its own definition. Since I collect silver type coins, ancient coins would only be a subset. If one were to collect country-specific, hammered style, US colonial era only, etc. type coins, then that would fit the bill as its own type. If for instance hammered style coins were predominant in ancient times but was still in use into the last couple of centuries, then the latter coins would still be using "ancient" methods of coin production. Conversely, if, say, some Ancient Greek coins weren't hammered, they'd still be ancient coins due to the period in which they were produced.

And, I believe that the beauty of this hobby is that you can narrow or expand the number of "types" you want to collect. For me, although I like to collect silver type coins, I'm dabbling into hyperinflation paper notes, a very specific subset banknote type, and I may get into a specific type of red gold coins.

 

Ancient is an ever changing notion. The 475CE cut off line came during the Reinasance. To them something from 1000+ years before seemed pretty ancient. Well, now the Reinasance seems like a pretty long time to us, and I think a lot of people would consider anything through the early middle ages to be ancient. Eventually, given enough time, we will all be considered ancient too. I doubt a historian 1000 years from now would consider 2015 as the modern era. By that time probably anything pre-2000CE would be ancient, and 2015 would be in that grey line between ancient and non-ancient.

@AncientJoe is a man ahead of his time, calling himself ancient before someone 1000 years from now does the same for all of us

 

1000 years from now? My kids already call me ancient.

 

Thankfully my kid is still in that age where daddy is considered Superman. Not looking forward to the teen years when daddy goes from being awesome to being an antiquated man who knows less than his cool all-knowing son with a vast life experience of 16 years.

 

Can someone please let me know what the medal alignment is on this coin from the OP - is it "up, up", or is it "up, down" on this coin? I believe the catalog # is SNG Copenhagen #524.

Thanks in advance!

 

It is neither. Notice the flan shape and you can work out the orienation. If the picture is considered representative of which direction is "up" on each side, then the orientation is "up, right" or 3h(because if you were to hold the coin with the obverse "up" and turn it to the reverse, the top of the reverse would be pointing towards 3 o'clock).

 

That was so obvious I can't believe I missed it, lol.

It looks like after flipping the coin laterally, it's rotated 90 degrees to the left, or offset 90 degrees to the right from the upright position.

So, you're right from what I can tell.

And, were they more or less consistent with this orientation?

Or, were they randomly orientated?

 

Here's a good page discussing the subject. In some cases they were consistent, in other cases it's seemingly random.

 

Wellllll. I am moving BHUTAN!!!

 

This is not at all silly. If you hold a coin between finger and thumb top and bottom and then rotate your wrist to see the other side without moving the coin in fingers, you will get the top up with 9H or 3H depending on which hand you are using. Several earlier coins are much more common this way. There is no 'ancient' way of doing things. People separated by a thousand years and thousands of miles had no idea we would expect them to be consistent.

 

This is a bit of a tangent, but are the clock terms (e.g. 3H, 6H, etc.) the proper or standard way for labeling coin orientation for ancients? Since I'm a "modern" coin collector for the most part, I'm used to "medal" or "coin" alignment, with everything else typically being a die rotation error - and each of these alignments can be translated into degrees starting from the "up, up" position. These say the same thing as the clock terms, but what's the standard speak for ancients?

 

That's what I use but I think some others use degrees.

 

More sellers ignore the matter altogether. Of course many ignore weights and other things we might prefer they do not as well.

 

I use the clock designation for die orientation of coins in my collection, but then I have coins where determining the orientation is impossible, like this one:



CNG always gives diameter, weight, and Xh orientation. Most others, especially European dealers, don't give orientation or even DIAMETER, which I think is a valuable piece of information which can't always be determined from the weight or denomination!

 

I agree that the reverse orientation just isn't as important with ancients since it's not like an odd rotation makes any coin more valuable. I have the same issue as @ancientnut-- for many coins I collect, the obverse and reverse orientation doesn't even have a "correct" way. Diameter is important and I wish all auction houses would state both weight and diameter.

Here's an example of a coin with no obviously correct obverse orientation. The winged boars are usually depicted rather horizontally or even tipped down a bit. I thought it looked better tipped upwards, like Pigasus is gaining altitude rather than dragging his feet on the ground. So, I chose to go against the usual orientation. I doubt the ancient coin police will fine me for this


Lesbos, Mytilene. EL hekte, c. 521-478 BCE

Many archaic coins have a simple punch or geometric reverse. Assigning a rotation to such coins is artificial and (I believe) meaningless.

Example:

Caria, Kindya. AR tetrobol, 510-480 BCE. I chose to orient the pictures with the reverse oriented approximately 12:00, adjusted just a bit for aesthetics.

Stating the precise relative reverse rotation can error-ridden even with Roman Imperial portrait issues. The obverse legends may not start and stop at symmetric clock points, and you could easily rotate the portrait +/- an hour without it looking wrong. If the reverse has an exergual line it is easier to determine reverse orientation but not all of them have such a line.

 

Can you expand on your thinking about why diameter is important?

At least for Roman aurei and denarii, I don't find diameters very meaningful -- especially not the way that weight is meaningful for these coins. More generally, for ancient coins that are never really round, I tend to ignore diameter information unless a bronze seems small or large for its weight.

Maybe it's more important for Greek coins?

 

Yes, I think it is more important when looking at Greek and Roman provincial coins for which denominations may not be as well understood. I don't have any specific examples in mind right now but if I come across any coins where knowing both weight and diameter made a difference in attribution, I'll try to remember to post it here.

 

The cash coins were cast, not struck in any way.