Thinking about going back in time with my collection. As many of you know, my collection starts at 1499 A.D. and goes backwards. I've have dates going back to 1465 A.D. complete. From there it is hit or miss, mostly miss, thru 1374 A.D. I would like to fill in the missing dates and my best opportunities are with Islamic coins. I need to find a calendar converter for the project. The one I found says for example 1464 A.D. = 868 AH. Dealers that sell these coins also list said coin 1464 A.D. = 869 AH. Other collectors say go with the one with the greatest amount of months for a year. I plan on going back as far as I can using different empires and kingdoms. I read somewhere that I will hit a road block in the 400's A.D. Any help on this project will greatly be appreciated. Thank you in advance. Tibor
The Islamic year is lunar and therefore about 11 days shorter than the Gregorian solar year. This means that there is never a one-to-one correspondence. Islamic Hijri years are typically expressed by a dual Gregorian date. For convenience and by convention, Hijri years beginning before 1 July can be expressed as the earlier Gregorian year and those beginning 1 July or later as the latter Gregorian year (e.g. AH 868 = AD 1463/4 or 1464). I recommend flexibility of interpretation in assembling your collection. You may find this converter helpful: https://www.islamicity.org/hijri-gregorian-converter/
@dltsrq Thank you for your response and advice. I am going to start adding these interesting coins as my budget allows. once again THANK YOU!!!
Not to nitpick, but there are years where a one to one correspondence is possible. 1976 is one of them. It starts in January and ends in December. Therefore coins dated AH1396 equate to a 1976 mint year. Ah1362/1943 is the same.
Perhaps you missed my point. The lunar Hijri year is substantially shorter than the Gregorian solar year so in no case can Hijri and Gregorian years correspond perfectly. Yes, AH 1396 falls entirely within AD 1976. Therefore, any coin dated AH 1396 was struck with certainty during the course of AD 1976 and no dual conversion date is required. However, a coin dated AD 1976 may have been struck in the last few days of AH 1395, on any day in AH 1396, or in the first days of AH 1397. One-to-one correspondence is a two-way street.
