Yesterday, instead of doing any of the plethora of things I should have been doing, I had the sudden urge to dig out, sort, image, and put up my ~150-200 Omkara type drachms. This one in particular stood out for a number of reasons India, Malwa Indo Sassanian "Omkara" type drachm C. 13-14th century Obv: Degenerate Peroz bust right, nose replaced by "conch" Eye replaced by symbol, ear displaced by Ja or Ma Rev: Fire altar, "OM" replaces altar shaft - It weighs in at a whopping 5.24g! That's about 20% over the theoretical 4.4g weight for this type. - Not entirely unheard of for this series, there is something funky going on that completely obscures the eye symbol. Closest I can think of would be the "staff". - The ear is too obscured to be discerned - The reverse symbol is mostly off flan, but I can see enough to tell that it is a simple style OM only. - Further puzzling, the silver content appears to be much higher than expected. The highest silver content is about 20%, belonging to the type with a triangle and chandrabindu ("Conch") eye - but that type always has a small, fine style OM. The only other combinations are a dot, a tiny crescent, and an X or +, all of which are lower in purity (11% to 0%). Tenatively, I believe this may be an unpublished type. For those who don't have Maheshwari's book (i.e. Probably everyone except me) he included a handy dandy attribution table with all the types known to him Numbers are the silver purity of specimens he had XRF tested, upper and lower ranges. Grey squares are specimens that he owned or studied, white are unknown combinations. I'm personally unconvinced that 8, 11, and 12 are actually distinct varieties, but I digress. Of my coins, the overwhelmingly vast majority was 8/3 (Ja behind head, cross eye, Sri Omkara) followed by 8/5 (Ma, cross, Om). Only about 6 were unattributable like this one. I'm working through the rest of the images - got a long way to go! Post any examples of these Omkara drachms you have, or anything else that is exceptionally over or underweight for the type!
Very nice, I am always a fan of coins that are overweight for the type. I sometimes go out of my way to buy the coin if it's in my price range that is overweight. Just one of the little quirks to my style of coin collecting. Some favorite overweights. Philip I (244 - 249 A.D.) O: IMP M IVL PHILIPPVS AVG, Radiate, draped and cuirassed bust right, from behind. R: LIBERALITAS AVGG II, Liberalitas standing left, counting board in right, cornucopia in left. Rome 21mm 5.8g RIC IV 38b, RSC IV 87 SRCV III 8937 Gordian III (238 - 244 A.D.) AR Antoninianus O: IMP GORDIANVS PIVS FEL AVG; radiate draped bust right. R: SECVRIT PERP; Securitas standing left with scepter, leaning on column. Rome Mint 25mm 6.2g RIC IV Rome 151 Caracalla (198 - 217 A.D.) AR Tetradrachm Mesopotamia, Carrhae O: AVT·K·M·A ANTONЄINOC ·C-EB · ·, laureate head of Caracalla right; two pellets beneath rear truncation. R: ΔΗΜΑΡΧ ΕΞ ΥΠΑΤΟ Δ, eagle standing facing on bucranium, dot to each side, wings spread, head right, wreath in beak. 28mm 17.10g Prieur 820, Bellinger 160, SGI 2701 Ex. Agora Auctions, lot 184, Sale 81
That is one roly-poly drachm! Just the other day I came across an unusually thick and heavy coin I'd forgotten about: Tetricus antoninianus, 17 x 19 mm, 3 mm thick, 6.4 gm RIC 90? It almost looks like three flans fused together but if that is the case, some of the edges melted together completely because the areas of "separation" do not go all the way around.
