I always wanted one of these. There was a common practice in antiquity of a powerful ruler requiring subservient neighboring kings to send their son to the more powerful court as something between honored guest and hostage. In such a way Bela III of Hungary grew up in the court of the Byzantine Emperor Manuel I. Since Manuel had no sons, the plan was for Bela to marry his daughter which would have made him the next Byzantine Emperor. However, a second marriage later provided Manuel with a son and Bela was turned loose to return to become king of Hungary. Among the things Bela got out of the exposure to Byzantine culture was the idea of cup shaped coins. My new coin is very different from Byzantine in style but the resemblance is obvious. I do find it interesting that Bela was able to make the coins thinner, rounder and more even with no doublestriking even though they both were working in the late 12th century with, I assume, similar technologies. The convex side shows Mary with legend SANCTA MARIAE. The concave side has Bela and his deceased father Stephen with legend REX BELA REX StS. Some letters are turned oddly. The coins are common and available in several variations mostly to do with how the letters are turned oddly. Many are less clear than this one. I always found it interesting that this coin is generally considered medieval while many people classify all Byzantines with their ancients. Bela ruled 1172-1196 AD so medieval seems correct.
Thanks for sharing. I think the cupped Byzantine coins (and other similar coins) are fascinating. I own only one at the moment.
Really cool Doug. I have seen these periodically, but hadn't gotten one yet. I have quite a few Bulgarian copies of Byzantine scyphates, but that is easy to do as many "byzantine schyphates" on Ebay are contemporary Bulgarian imitations. So, the cultures I am aware of having scyphate coins are: Byzantium, Hungary, Bulgaria, Himyarite, Celtic, and Sogdian. Any others? Chris
Not really. However there are some coins that are more cupped than most but not really scyphate. The Rajaraja Chola bronzes come to mind but my picture of one doesn't show the cupping as much as you see it in hand.
Very true, and I think some of these are cupped due to die size variance more than anything, I should have said cupped shaped coins on my list. They definitely are attention getters.
Wow, I'm very impressed. Nice historical information, but also a truly remarkable coin. I have a number of cup coins and find them very appealing, in general, but none are nearly as detailed as that one. (Generally, the Byzantine cup coins seemed the have the images focused on the center, and the "outer cup" left blank, no?) It's hard to know from frontal photos, but this one appears much "less cupped" than the usual Byzantine one. (That's another issue: I imagine at least some of them have been re-shaped before retail sale, since it wouldn't be hard to heat them up and press out the bent edges that I've seen pretty often.) Very cool.
You are correct Byzantine's usually have more flan unstruck around the edges than this coin. Also, many Byzantine's are ill struck, or worn. There ARE Byzantine scyphates that exist in such condition, but like all Byzantine coins a well struck, nice XF copper coin is very rare and worth a lot. Also, a lot of "Byzantine" scyphates are really local imitations, Latin, and other rulers and not struck by the true Greeks of Byzantium, so you cannot blame all of the crummy scyphates on the market all on the Byzantines. I don't imagine there would be any point in reshaping a scyphate before sale. Many colelctors hate these as they are do to their shape, why would a dealer wish to accentuate that? There is no such thing I have ever heard of a premium for the amount of curve in one of these coins. The amount of curve varies dramatically, though, and is normal. Chris
