Jewish War -Year 2 (67/68 CE)

Picked this little Judean-Roman war coin - The Hebrew says, "Freedom of Zion"

 

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Lovely coin Ruben :thumb:

Prutah year 3 (I think)
Amphora
Vine leaf

 

Yeah - I like this one. The leaf is great and the strict is well centered.

Ruben

 

very nice coin

Sorry it is year 2 ( 68/67 AC The war of the Jews against the Romans )

 

That's the biggest thumbnail I've ever seen! Seriously though, nice pick-ups Ruben.

 

thumbnail of an elephant maybe.

but that's a nice coin

 

Nice coin! Lots of detail visible.

 

My thiumb or the coin? Actually this coin's leaf drove us to it.

Ruben

 

Excellent coin! I can clearly read 5 of the 7 letters on the obverse and all of the letters on the reverse. And the reverse is perfectly centered too. Much nicer than mine.

By the way, besides the inscription (year 2 or year 3) you can tell the difference because the year 2 coins don't have the lid on the amphora and the year 3 coins do - just in case the inscription is not clear.

-Daniel

 

Thanks for that tip. And the NY Show my elder daughter and I scouted out never ever Jewish Wars coin we could find of this class and we thought this was the best example of the show.

Are you familiar with the script?

Ruben

 

http://www.ancientscripts.com/old_hebrew.html

 

Ruben,
Yes, I am pretty good at this point at reading the paleo-Hebrew. Not as good as I am at reading the modern Hebrew, of course. I wish I was as good at recognizing if the coins are legit or not. When I see the shekels and half shekels from the war, I can recognize the ones that Hendin has in his "Not Kosher" book, but there are lots of fakes that everyone seems to be able to spot so easily and I cannot see what they see for the life of me.

 

Thanks for the tip about the lid, I did not know that :bow:

 

Its amazing to read paleohebrew. My daughter might learn it at Hunter College in CUNY

 

BTW - It's come to my attention that a lot of these coins available in Israel are from grave robbing. Anyone have any inside information on this?

Ruben

 

Depends on what you mean by "grave robbing". I am always careful of that term since archeologists, (many/most of which hate coin collectors), love to throw that word out for shock value.

If they mean people going into ancient caves where people MAY have been placed at some period in history after they passed away, then maybe. However, ancients normally didn't bury their dead with coins. Life was hard enough, and the living needed to live. The only ones who might do such things would be the rich, in which case the coins would be gold or silver, not a lowly copper.

I think its an unproven red herring that the archeologists are using to defame coin collectors personally.

 

In Jerusalem, i ran into this gentleman who ran a booth in the Arab Bazar, very close to the growing Jewish Quarter, Ali M. Wazwaz, at the Ali Baba Antiquities and Jewelery both, who at least claimed to be registered with the Israeli department of antiquities. He was at Chains Gate Street No, 18 in the Old City. very nice Arab kid. He has a great collection of not just coins, but a lot of seemingly authentic artifacts from the Iron Age and Jewish wars.. He was quick to show off his Dave Herndin autographed text

But what I've read on the net, is that such dealers are supplied by questionable West Bank diggers, which is politically interesting in its own right, but that aside, is that it is a fairly large business in Israel and the throughout the Judean and Samaerian hills. God knows the Israeli Antiquities site doesn't put out enough information on dealers or artifacts.

Ruben

 

Not disagreeing they buy coins from diggers, but the "diggers" are not grave robbing. They simply dig where they believe there may have been human settlement. The difference is trying to dig where a house was, not a graveyard, for reasons I stated above.

Btw, speaking of Hendin, you ever read his story in his book about a coin buying trip to Jerusalem? Its funny. He went into a shop and found a coin he was interested in. The owner wanted an outlandish sum, and Mr. Hendin offered a reasonable amount of about $200. The owner stated, "Mr. David Hendin HIMSELF came into my shop offering me $3,000 for it, so I would never sell it to you so cheap". Mr. Hendin said, "well maybe you should call him back and accept his generous offer!"