Just found this laying around and don't remember purchasing it. Must be getting old - me and the coin. sorry also for the bad photos. good camera locked away at my school. Quarantine blues. just my cheap android and a small coin- about 8mm.
Mine's similar reverse... Your coin is HUGE, compared to mine... Ionia AR Tetartemorion 4mm 0.13g 530-500 BCE Rosette - Incuse sq punch 5 pellets SNG von Aulock 1807
wow- that is a tiny one! OK maybe a search on five pellet reverses Ionia would yield something. It is not quite the standard "floral pattern" or "rosette" so I did not know what to call it. Thank you!
yeah right!? i thought a blurry helmeted head also but now it is looking more like a messed up lion from Miletos like this one on acsearch :Ionia, Miletos EL 1/12 Stater. Circa 560-545 BC. Lion’s head right / Cross joining five pellets within quadrilobe incuse. ATEC 199-200; SNG Kayhan 444-448; Rosen, MM 72, 1987, 40. 1.17g, 8mm. Very Fine. But this is electrum so not sure?
I think mine was getting too small to cut a lion into the die. So, maybe they just cut the Lion's EYE.
I have several Tetartemorions, all amazingly small, but fun to collect. For what you are "getting", they are a little expensive. I have posted and searched other sites to get attribution info, or clarity. The common comments are: "You are not really going to get much more info." "They were small, dropped, and later found in Markets." "They are never found as a Hoard." "Difficult to identify" "We don't know why they used those designs." Etc., etc. etc. These were the SMALL CHANGE that folks used when buying everyday items at the markets. These were made BEFORE AE / Bronze was adopted as coin metal. They represented a tiny fraction of the larger SILVER coins being minted. They probably got lost EVERYWHERE due to their tiny size, and probly lost a lot more than any other coin. HOWEVER, due to their tiny sizes, they are probably very difficult to find them in great quantity, ergo, perhaps a lot of attribution detail is lost. Still, they are purdy cool to me! Here are a couple DINKY lions: Ionia Miletos AR Tetartemorion 5.6mm 0.21g Roaring Lion Hd - Bird Klein 430 SNG Kay 941 ASIA MINOR Uncertain mint AR Tetartemorion Lion - Incuse 5mm 0.13g
Great coin! But I'm sure it's Athena. Like this: Troas, Kolone. 5th-4th cenuries B.C. AR hemiobol (7 mm, 0.34 g). Head (of Athena?) right, wearing crested Corinthian helmet / Stellate pattern consisting of five pellets and four rays within incuse square. Cf. Gorny & Mosch 212, 1769. Unpublished in the standard references. Very rare. Toned. Very fine. There have been four or five of these fractions to have appeared on the market in the past several years. It seems likely that they are from Kolone in the Troad as they share types with the city's 4th century bronze coinage. And that makes yours a real rarity @Mike Margolis!
WOW! thank you Ryro - amazing- that is it for sure. But now I wonder how I got a hold of it. It just appeared in a plastic flip in a bottom drawer and no specs. Maybe someone sent it as a bonus and I did not even see it at first.
Yes they are purdy cool but so small- when you order them and get them you kind of are not sure if the cost was worth it. Thanks for the history- i could see how they would be quite rare also due to their size.
Yeah, my first taste of “oh” is when I got my first Republic AR Sestertius... but quickly overcome, cuz they are so cool.
