You can see the coin has been broken, Is this normal with these ? Did they take parts of the coins as they did with some silver coins.
No, broken pieces is not very common. I have the same coin and its intact. Your break will affect its value, though not too severely since its basically outside the design area. Even clipped coins, that you may be thinking about, will affect the value, its just a matter of degree and how much of the flan is removed. Chris
Tough call. Common issue, common emperor, with a break, but still design is intact and its Byzantine gold. $200? I would say without the break $300.
When I first saw this thread, I read it as the former US president candidate Michael Dukakis. . Nice coin Siggi.
Lol. I can see why, in the US this emperor is usually spell Doucas. In ancients you have to be flexible with spellings. Not nearly as bad as with Sassanid coins, where is can be khusrou or husraw, or vahran or bahram. I collected these coins for 5 years before I knew bahram gur was also known as vahran V and I could buy coins minted of him.
The spellings ARE standardized. Only the transliteration systems differ. For example, Hartill (and most modern references) use the Pinyin system for transliterating Chinese. Krause, on the other hand, uses the out-of-date Wade-Giles system.
Yeah, but in ancients you go from old references to new, from European spelling to US conventions, have alphabets like Sassanid with no vowels so you are only guessing anyway, it all makes for a slight mess spelling wise. I am just saying it helps to be "open" to spelling idiosynchrasies and be able to reconcile who they heck they are talking about. Heck, there are even differences between numismatists and academics. The book "Persepolis to the Punjab" has it Vahran, yet the "Decline and Fall of the Sassanid Empire" has it Bahram. Both are newish publications. So which is "right"?
