A 11 from Troas, Ilion (AKA Troy), 301-281 BCE. Obverse: Athena right wearing Attic helmet Reverse: 11-1 around a Hydria Catalogue #: SNG Cop 346 Identifying this coin took over a year! Originally, I got this coin out of a junk box for $15. I knew its style is distinct enough to narrow it down to the Troad, but identifying which city it was from was difficult. After a year of believing it was from Larissa Phrikonis, I did more research, and found that I was incorrect. Upon researching the odd looking vase on the reverse, I tound that it resembled a Hydria trom Troy. I then looked through Wildwinds, and found a match. The arduous process of identifying coins is possibly my favorite part of the hobby!
I purchased about 150 coins of Troas in a group lot and not a single coin was from Illium/Troy. I also had trouble with finding sources - the CNG Handbook series does not cover Troas, the Wildwinds site is not complete for this area, a search.info is sort of cumbersome - I finally was able to purchase the BMC book on Troas but it is a copy from the 19th century. Your coin is beautiful - well worth the $15. The celators must have been amazing to make these with so much detail and only 10mm or so. I also love attributing - for me that is mostly but not entirely Greek bronzes. I do have about eight silver fractions that seem to be impossible to attribute - anyone know of a book on silver fractions? I hesitate to post these because that seems like cheating.
It’s a shame that Troas doesn’t get the attention it deserves; it has some of the most intriguing coin designs. To ID this coin I had to look through some of Heinrich Schliemann writings pottery finds in Troy. There really is no joy greater than identifying an elusive coin!
I agree! I had one that took three or four years - then I’m looking through a book on the Limdgren collection of Greek bronzes and there it is. Another one took two or three years - no identification even though there were three visible letters in the inscription - hours of searching - then I opened a CNG Handbook that covered Northern Turkey at random and there it was. It can be frustrating especially when you know you have seen something similar before but can’t quite recall where. I have a lot of small Greek bronzes on the way and I’m looking forward to it. Of course I have about 12 small bronzes - the remains of the other groups - that are still unattributed - some too worn ever to be. But I’ll keep trying!
Try using the Corpus Nummorum - Troas (SNG Turkey 9-1, 493-497 (pl 25-26); CN Online 12134) online database. They have a lot of unpublished, hard to find coins. It helped me to identify this rare, obscure coin from Troas, Gargara: It was simply sold at auction as an AE Bronze and one could have easily misidentified it as a Troas, Cebren due to the Rams head on the reverse.
