Iran (Persia): gold toman of Fath-Ali Shah, AH 1233 (1817), Yazd mint

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

That's another cool one, but right in the middle at 5 for me (I prefer to have pictorial imagery in most cases).

 

I agree completely!
I've made plenty of exceptions in my collecting and that is the beauty of an "eclectic" set.

 

As our bearded friends from Texas like to say, " Every girl crazy 'bout a sharp dressed man"

 

The Shah looks a little like Jep Robertson from Duck Dynasty.

 

Super nice looking gold piece, even if I can't read it!

 

As far as I can determine this is what the Arabic/Persian script on the coin is:

The obverse field is:

دار العبادة
Dar al-ibadat (Abode of Piety, epithet for Yezd Mint)

Below is the date:
۱۲۳۳
1233

The reverse top line is:

فتحعلی شاه قاجار
Fateh'ali Shah Qajar (Fateh Ali King Qajar dynasty)

The second line is:

السلطان ابن السلطان
Sultan ibn Sultan (King and son of king)
Note that all three words end in 'n'.

The third line are the end 'n's placed here artistically.
ن ن ن

Note that Arabic is read right to left and sometimes bottom to top.

I hope that this helps.

 

Arabic/Persian calligraphy is very difficult to read simply because it is considered an art form rather than script. Moreover, you not only need to know the script but understand the language as well. Add to that the fact that much of the script could be off flan and decorative dots or accent marks could and do change the pronunciation of a letter. Plus it is often written from the bottom line upwards and the artist might decide to break up the letters in a word for good measure. Just like a modern English speaker reading a medieval French text written by a dyslexic ancient Latin scribe.

Think of a Picasso painting with the nose on the forehead, ears where the eyes should be and one eye in place of the mouth. A strange beast if you didn't actually know what the human face looked like. Plus some on the letters on your coin appear scraped or maybe its the light. Anyway here is my effort:

Let's start with the right side image since that is the clearest. As correctly pointed out by @willieboyd2 above, the first short line reads "Shah Qaa-jaa-r' below that 'Fathali" as one word. The script below the long diagonal stroke is even more jumbled up. It reads "Al Sulta b Sulta" with the N of the first 'Sultan' the ib of 'ibn' (son of) and the n of the second 'Sultan' making up the last line........see the letters that look like three "U's" with lots of decorative dots in them and the centre letter with a vertical stroke.

An "N" in Arabic looks a lot like a "U" in Latin but with one dot in it.

Confused??? You will be after the next episode of "Let's read Arabic/Persian Caligraphy"

Now @lordmarcovan do you REALLY want to know what is on the left image

The reverse reads: "Yazd; Al iba" (the "dh" is in the 3rd row at the very end) Sar'dar (in the place of) and finally 'B' which in Persian means 'in'

Basically it says "B sar'dar Iba'dh Yazd 1233"

 

An excellent book on the subject of Islamic coins is Richard Plant's book Arabic Coins and How To Read Them (Spink and Son Ltd, 1980).

I bought a copy in February 2020 and have been attempting to read the writing on some Islamic coins.

 

For someone who, I assume, has no previous knowledge of the Arabic Alphabet, you have done a fabulous job thus far

Does it actually teach you to read the script or do you recognise it, like an image?

I can read 3 different scripts and even I find it very difficult to read Islamic calligraphy.....for that matter, I can only just write coherently in the Latin script

 

Now we have the book we'll just slice through the rest

 

Lord M, I like your taste.

Here is one of the other 62s.

 

Wow! Two very beautiful coins so far in this post. Thanks for sharing.

I have familiarity with a smattering of Arabic but I still find these coins quite difficult to read. Once someone has pointed out the correct translation, I understand, but my own efforts rarely get me to that point.

And I strongly recommend Plant's book. He must have been quite a linguist.

 

Technically, Persian is a separate language with its own Arabic-derived alphabet but fortunately for us, many of the coins can be read as though in Arabic.