Middle Eastern Gold Coin HELP!!

Hey gang!

I had a customer who has this piece. The coin is 18K Gold +. The coin belongs to a former US soldier who found it is a cave in Iraq... or that was the story I got. It was slightly larger then a US nickel... and I totally forgot to weigh it.

Can anyone help identify?

Thanks in advance.

 

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It looks like an Ayyubid dinar to me. Get the diameter in millimeters and the weight in grams, I'll check my references and try to read it when I get home.

 

If the "soldier found it" story is true, could face a court-martial for looting.

 

Unfortunately he has the coin and I think this is all the info I'm gonna get... I totally forgot to measure it and weigh it... we were getting run over in the shop at the time.

 

Also be very careful with it. They have been faking these ovr there for hundreds of years. The Chinese didn't invent counterfeiting.

 

If anything I will probably send it to NGC for the customer. It looks to be a very scarce piece from the little bit I was able to find.

 

This should be a dinar of the Ayyubid ruler al-Nasir Salah al-Din Yusuf, known as Saladin in the west, struck at the Dimashq (Damascus) mint in AH 583 (AD 1187/8). Balog, Ayyubids 79; Album 785.3. This is an extremely rare coin - the last one to sell was in a Baldwin's sale in April, where it realized 20,000 pounds.


I suspect it may be a high-quality fake. I would not trust NGC with this type of coin, having seen so many improperly attributed Islamic coins in their plastic. You should contact Steve Album, he can probably comment on the authenticity and, if real, offer a good venue to sell it through: http://www.stevealbum.com/

 

I will contact him. Thanks!

 

Thanks for the attribution Bill. I had never seen one, but I am not an expert in these.

Btw, Saladin was a transnational hero to the Islamic world, it would make sense such coins were copied so more people could own them. Also, Steve Album literally "wrote the book" on Islamic coins in English, (as well as Michael Broome), and as such is a foremost expert in these.

I have been meaning to try to get into Islamic coins more, but I just can't get started on them. I have the books, just cannot seem to get the urge to study them.