Orodes II from a rare mint- possible fourree? Contemporary counterfeit? What's going on?

Parthian Kingdom. Traxiane mint. AR drachm (3.36 g). Orodes II (57-38 BC). Obverse: King's bust diademed left, crescent behind. Reverse: Seated archer right, mintmark T under bow, somewhat blundered standard 7-line Greek legend around. Sellwood 46.14, Shore 235. This coin: Bought from Allen G. Berman at Baltimore Whitman Coin Expo, November 2021.

(Note: Historical paragraph is reused from a previous write-up.)
Orodes II was a son of the Parthian king Phraates III (c.70-57 BC). In 57 BC, Orodes and his brother Mithradates (called Mithradates III in older references, now believed to be IV) conspired to kill their father and take over the throne. The two brothers seem to have shared power for a short while, but soon quarreled, and within a couple of years Orodes killed Mithradates to become sole ruler. Orodes had several fights with the Romans, most notably at the Battle of Carrhae in 53 BC where the Parthians wiped out a large Roman force led by the triumvir Crassus. In 38 BC, his favorite son Pakoros was killed in battle in Roman Syria, forcing the distraught Orodes to choose a new heir. Unfortunately, the son he chose, Phraates IV, was quite bloodthirsty and promptly killed his father and other brothers to consolidate his grasp on power.

The portrait style on this coin is quite nice, but what most made me decide to buy it is the rare mintmark of T for Traxiane. Traxiane was the Parthian-era name for what was later called Khorasan, in northeastern Iran, and refers to the whole province rather than just one city. Further inspection of the coin has made me more confused. At first I thought the surfaces were just a bit rough due to corrosion, but looking at various spots on the coin (especially around the edges at 2 o'clock on the obverse and 2-3 o'clock on the reverse) it looks like the outer silver layer of a fourree is peeling back from the base metal core. Fourrees are rare among Parthian coins (much more so than for Romans) but they do exist, scattered throughout the Parthian series. (One theory claims they exist because Parthian mint-masters overstruck fourree Roman coins, not knowing about their fourree nature. However, as far as I know no example of a Parthian fourree with Roman undertype showing has ever surfaced.) This coin weighs 3.36 grams, which is quite low (the average for Orodes II drachms is around 3.8- 4.0 grams), and although I found a few examples of Orodes II drachms of similar weight, this is definitely on the low end of the bell curve, adding to my suspicion.

There are also some oddities on the reverse that wouldn't be explained by this coin being a fourree. Drachms of Orodes II always have two full lines of legend on the bottom of the reverse. Notice on this coin that the archer's feet and the legs of the chair extend down into what should be the inner line of legend, leaving that line of text abbreviated. There also seem to be a couple of extra dots between the front of the archer's lap and the T mintmark. My first guess was that the reverse was double-struck, with the extra dots representing part of the original T mintmark and the archer's feet covering up part of the first strike of the bottom legend line. However, thinking carefully about the sequence of strikes and what should be obliterated versus what would still be visible, I can't come up with a reasonable scenario of double-striking that would produce what is seen on this coin. Maybe it is just an odd artistic choice by the die engraver, but I've never seen this before on a Parthian coin. This could be an unofficial issue (either fourree or not), but the artistic style (other than the oddly-placed feet and the dots) is very normal for official Parthian mint products of the period. I think I've figured out all I can by myself, so I'm appealing to all the good folks here on Coin Talk for your expertise. References, theories, comparative examples, and half-baked guesses are all welcome, even if you aren't a Parthian specialist. Also, please feel free to post whatever other coins you have that are related.

 

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The inscription seems more poorer than usual.

Here is a fourree from Traxiane from the Sellwood collection (not mine!)
https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=2133261

Sellwood's fourree is in much better style than what you found.

In the Andre Sergeev collection of barbarian coins where is a Parthian imitation (_Barbarian Coins_ #633). It is a Mithradates II bust. The letters are mostly dots with a few lines and circles. That coin attributed to "Atropatene?".

 

As interesting coin @Parthicus, is it as orange/brown in hand as the photo looks? Although I don't have a coin from the Traxiane mint, I will share another coin from this region that rarely shows up on CT. Part of Traxiane/Khorasan in north-eastern Iran is highlighted on the map below with a blue pin showing the rough location of Mashad the city that Sellwood lists (with question mark) as the possible mint city for Traxiane. The red pin for Perseopolis - the mint for my coin.

This coin from a King of Persis ruling under Parthian sovereignty 1st Century BC, potentially a contemporary of Orodes II. I found the Zoraoastrian barsom bundle intriguing on this coin.

"The barsom ritual is intended to express gratitude to the Creator for his boundless gifts in particular of vegetarian character. The barsom bundle is made of 45cm twigs (the length of the leg till the knee) of a prescribed thickness, in an appropriate number from a specific type of tree, bound into a bundle by a part of the leaf of the date palm."
- P.A. van’t Haaff

King of Persis, Oxathres (Vahšīr), 1st century BC, Hemidrachm, 2.04g, 12mm, Istakhr (Persepolis) mint
Obv: Diademed bust to the left, monogram behind
Rev: King standing to the left, before the Fire Altar, holding a barsom bundle.

 

Very interesting drachm, the specimens from Traxiane are among the rarest.
Given its weight it is possible that the coin is fourrée (I had a coin minted at Aria, of the same weight, probably fourrée), but it is not certain, it is perhaps only a metal of bad quality.
Drachms of Orodes II with the monogram T can be extremely different from each other, either in style or in their legends (completely consistent or not at all). It looks like a lot of engravers, of very varying skill, got involved, and that the engravers of Traxiane and Margiane were partially the same (http://www.parthika.fr/Ateliers-orientaux.html#haut).

Two drachms (ex) from my collection:


ORODES II
Drachm S.45.27 v., Traxiane
3.55 g



ORODES II
Drachm S.47.12, Traxiane
3.95 g