Late Byzantine Hoard Analysis and Notes!

@The Trachy Enjoyer, you've already made an incisive, unknown (to yours truly), and duly valued distinction between Latin and Bulgarian knock-offs. Many thanks.

 

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I have a fun one. I think it is Andronicus II and Michael IX . But I have no Match.

 

@BenSi, when you used the word "fun," you kind of nailed it, especially for people who have only less of an idea what they're looking at than you do. Except that, for any sort of post-Latin, 13th-century trachy, the obverse motif, with the (What? haloed saint's head???) above, and the sort of Latin /patriarchal cross below, is already very evocative. Especially in reference to ongoing cultural influence from the Franks. ...Largely in spite of themselves. Almost reminiscent of how Hollywood has invaded (for one instance) Western Europe.

 

Sear 2435? Im not too familiar with coinage post Michael VIII

 

This is Sear 2465.
Sear gives it to Andronicus II & III, but I suspect it belongs earlier, to Andronicus II & Michael IX.
See here (the last section) for a convoluted discussion of this type:

https://www.glebecoins.org/paleos/A...chea_of_A/the_thessalonican_trachea_of_a.html

Ross G.

 

Nice write-up and group!

Trachy coinage for me is uncharted waters, something along the lines of ancient maps with unknown areas noted as "There be monsters".

The late Byzantine trachys are a world unto themselves, and certainly one worth exploring. I only have a few that happened to be part of a group lot of Byzantine bronzes. I guess they were thrown in for lack of group lot trachys for that auction.

Here's one of them. I think this is Sear 1918, Alexis I Comnenus, with some edge chips. I think the small chips just happened naturally. Of course someone in Byzantine times might have left them as a tip at a restaurant, for really lousy service.



Given their very nature as "cup coins" their unusual shapes, and the brittle nature of the billon flans, often with significant splits, lend themselves to all sorts of odd strikes and often weak, worn, off center or double struck convex sides, and quite often nice concave sides. That does make the challenge of finding really nice examples all the greater.

 

@robinjojo, you had to evoke the contemporaneous Tabula Rogeriana, conspicuously lacking the sort of sea monsters that you find on maps a small handful of centuries later, when Europeans were that busy exploring and exploiting the rest of the world.

Here's the Wiki article, which will give you the same thing in better resolution.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabula_Rogeriana

 

@robinjojo I'm no expert in this area, but that looks like a nice example (Sear 1918 as you mentioned) of an Alexius I (he is sometimes called "Alexios I") billon aspron trachy. It is one of the earliest billon aspron trachy coins. You can even see some of the silver content. The earliest billon aspron trachy coins were 6% or 7% silver. As the years went by, the silver content of newly minted billon aspron trachy coins eventually went to almost zero.
Yes, trachy coins are fascinating and mysterious. Many of them seem to be very difficult to attribute, at least for me. I've never tried to buy un-attributed trachy coins, like @The Trachy Enjoyer did in the OP. I once went to an LCS, and they had a box full of cheap, un-attributed trachy coins. It was bewildering. I didn't buy any of them, because they weren't in very good condition, and because many of them looked like trachy coins that I already had. Maybe, someday, I'll go back, and look at them again, if they are still there.
Here's one of mine.
Latin Rule In Constantinople. 1204 AD to 1261 AD. Sear 2035. Maximum diameter 20 mm. Weight 1.12 grams. Obverse Jesus Christ standing on a dais. Reverse Emperor standing holding labarum and globus cruciger. The coin has been clipped, which is typical.

 

P.S. : For some reason, I cannot access the profile page of @The Trachy Enjoyer
I wonder, if he is no longer a member of CoinTalk.
Or, maybe, his profile page is hidden, somehow.

 

Thank you for the link.

The Tabula Rogeriana, created by Arab geographer Muhammad al-Idrisi, is a remarkable map for the period (1154).

Yes, the monsters came in later maps, and I must say it alludes to the world unknown to the ancients beyond the Pillars of Hercules, even as mapping and the study of geography progressed.

 

Thank you for the information - nice coin as well!

 

...Too much, in terms of the aggregate historical context, to get into right now.

 

On an unrelated note, The Trachy Enjoyer was inexplicably banned from the forum last week. He had been experiencing some issues relating to 2FA (two factor authentication) and called upon the moderators to help him. When he did so, he was permanently banned without any cause given. This comes only weeks after Classical Numismatics (https://www.youtube.com/c/ClassicalNumismatics) was banned minutes after making his first post. I've only been here for around a year but I can say with confidence that this forum has immense issues originating from the moderators.

 

Are you talking about 2 factor authentication for login? If so, then I didn't know, that CoinTalk has 2 factor authentication for login. Is that optional? I've been logged in to CoinTalk, for so long, that I don't even remember any more. I think I've always just used a password. But I don't remember for sure.

 

It's optional.

 

Well. I guess I'll avoid 2 factor authentication.
This is like a scary movie. One day, a CoinTalk member is happily posting threads, and contributing to everyone's knowledge. And the next day, that person has disappeared. I wonder who is next?
Here is some speculation. Someone said, that a person may get banned, if the admins or mods believe, that the person is trying to create a 2nd account, or something like that. Perhaps this is to prevent malicious persons from joining CoinTalk, using multiple identities. Perhaps CoinTalk has guard software, which automatically checks to see, if someone is trying to create a 2nd account, based on IP addresses, or something like that. If that's true, then perhaps it is possible, for a CoinTalk member, to accidentally trigger the guard software, even if the person is not trying to create a 2nd account, perhaps by doing something out of the ordinary when logging in, or perhaps if something goes wrong with 2 factor authentication, or something like that. All of this is just speculation. Perhaps none of this is true. No reason for the ban was given, therefore all we have is speculation.
Based on this speculation, and not knowing anything else, I'll just try not to do anything out of the ordinary, when I login to CoinTalk. And I'll try to avoid 2 factor authentication.
I hope, that the ban of @The Trachy Enjoyer is temporary. He has contributed a lot of knowledge to this forum, about Byzantine coins.

 

P.S. : @zadie Could @The Trachy Enjoyer have been trying to change his username, by creating a new account, or a 2nd account? That could trigger a ban, based on what someone said.

 

I have two factor authentication and it works just fine.

 

I'm also having trouble seeing the first coin pictured in OP as John Gabalas. See for comparison:

 

A wonderful and informative post. Thank you for sharing it!