This may strike people as an unimportant question -- which I freely admit it is, because I have plenty of other catalog references for this coin -- but I can't help being curious about conflicting numbers I've seen for one reference for a Pantikapaion that arrived in the mail today. (I guess the name of the place has become synonymous with the name of the coin, but whatever one calls it, I've wanted one of these for some time.) Cimmerian Bosporos, Pantikapaion, AE 19 mm., ca. 310-304/303 BCE. Obv. Bearded head of satyr, right / Rev. Forepart of griffin left; below, sturgeon left; Π-A-N [PAN] around. Anokhin 111 (or 1023) [Anokhin, V.A., Monetnoye delo Bospora (The Coinage of the Bosporus (Kiev, 1986)]; Seaby 1700 [Sear, David, Greek Coins and their Values, Vol. 1: Europe (Seaby 1979) at p. 169]; BMC 3 Thrace 20 [R.S. Poole, ed. A Catalog of the Greek Coins in the British Museum, Vol. 3, The Tauric Chersonese, Sarmatia, Dacia, Moesia, Thrace, etc. (London, 1877) at p. 7]; HGC 7, 113 [Hoover, Oliver D., Handbook of Coins of Northern and Central Anatolia, Pontos, Paphlagonia, Bithynia, Phrygia, Galatia, Lykaonia, and Kappadokia (with Kolchis and the Kimmerian Bosporos), 5th to 1st Centuries BC, The Handbook of Greek Coinage Series, Volume 7 (Lancaster, PA, 2012); MacDonald 69 [MacDonald, David, An Introduction to the History and Coinage of the Kingdom of the Bosporus. Classical Numismatic Studies 5 (Lancaster, 2005)]; SNG BM Black Sea 869-870 [Sylloge Nummorum Graecorum, Great Britain, Volume IX, British Museum, Part 1: The Black Sea (London, 1993); available online at http://www.sylloge-nummorum-graecorum.org; see SNGuk_0901_0869 and SNGuk_0901_0870. 20 mm., 7.87 g., 12 h. This is a common coin, of course, but I've always liked the type, both for the obverse and the reverse. And because it's quite inexpensive as ancient coins go. There are so many available at any given time that it's pretty much a question of which one you like the best. I picked this one, even though a part of the N in PAN is off the flan, because everything else is there, and because of the brown coloring. Which it really looks like, I'm happy to say! What I wanted to ask is whether anyone has access to the Anokhin reference. A book I realize is in Russian! The reason I ask is that of the hundreds of examples of the type listed on acsearch, almost every one up through about 2014 gives the reference as Anokhin 111. And almost every example since then gives the reference as Anokhin 1023. Does anyone know why the change? Was there an updated edition published? Thanks to anyone who can explain. And please post your own coins from Pantikapaion.
I don't have the reference, but looking through CNG's sale records, I notice that they have examples of the type sold from 2015 onwards as Anokhin 1023, and for those before that, it's Anokhin 111. There are four Anokhin references listed in their bibliography page (on the 3rd page of that link). Based on the titles and published dates, I'm guessing that Anokhin 1023 is from the 2011 book, and Anokhin 111 from one of the earlier titles, probably 1986's Coinage of the Bosporus? Someone with the actual reference would have to confirm. Oh, and very nice pickup! The look really resembles that of my own... perhaps they were from the same hoard? CIMMERIAN BOSPORUS, Pantikapaion AE22. 7.61g, 21.7mm. CIMMERIAN BOSPORUS, Pantikapaion, circa 310-303 BC. Anokhin 1023; MacDonald 69; HGC 7, 113. O: Bearded head of Satyr (or Pan), right. R: Π-A-N, forepart of griffin left, sturgeon left below. Ex @Shea19 Collection; ex Lodge Antiquities
I have two examples from Pantikapaion. Here is one that I picked up earlier this year, in a Roma auction, with Pan on the obverse instead of the satyr, and a bull's head on the reverse. There's no Anokhin reference number for this coin in the description, but that might just be an oversight by the cataloger. Kimmerian Bosporos, Pantikapaion Æ27. Circa 325-310 BC. Beardless head of Pan left, wearing wreath of ivy leaves / Bull's head left; ΠAN around. SNG Stancomb 549 (this coin); SNG BM Black Sea 882; MacDonald 65; HGC 7, 107. 15.82g, 27mm, 6h. Good Very Fine. Rare. From the William Stancomb Collection; this coin published in Sylloge Nummorum Graecorum, Great Britain, Volume XI, The William Stancomb Collection of Coins of the Black Sea Region (Oxford, 2000); Acquired from A. H. Baldwin & Sons Ltd., 1979.
I dislike greatly the common practice of listing references to books you have not seen. I have no idea what differences Anokhin, for example, saw between two different variations and I do not know which one I might have. If I pretend I know the distinctions and post a number I can count on someone else copying my listing right or wrong and someone else copying them until no one knows whether they are right or wrong. That is bad enough but too many people don't really care if they are right or wrong as long as thy have a number that helps sell the coin.
@DonnaML ... I like your Pantikapaion. However, I cannot help you with an answer. Sorry gang. WOW, I need to reshoot this... Thrace Pantikapaion 4th C BC, AE 20 Pan head - Griffin forepart BMC 869 Ex: Glenn Terry GreatArt
Very nice new addition. I can’t help with the reference book, but here’s another popular type from Pantikapaion that I added earlier this year. Cimmerian Bosporos, Pantikapaion. Circa 325-310 BC. (AE, 20 mm, 5.58g), Wreathed head of satyr to left. / Rev. ΠΑΝ Bow and arrow. From the Vineyard Collection
Nice type and nice example @DonnaML I've been severely outbid on a similar one last weekend at the recent Leu webauction. A pity, since I really wanted it (not enough compared to others obviously) Q
I'm not an ancients person, but I love that obverse... when he curses you out, you can feel your toes curl.
I don't like using them either unless they come from a source I trust. Because mistakes get repeated all the time. For example, 99% of the time, the citation to this coin in SNG BM Black Sea is to Nos. 869-871. But I checked the online version, and only Nos. 869-870 are the same coin; 871 is very different. Obviously, after the first person made the error, hundreds have repeated it without checking. But the Anokhin mystery seems to be a case in which everyone used one number until 2014, and everyone has used a different number since then. So something must have changed, and I was curious as to the reason -- for example, whether it was an update, or whether 111 didn't ever exist, or whether 111 and 1023 both exist but one of them is an entirely different coin that someone originally cited by mistake, and everyone followed that mistake until someone corrected it.
Nobody should really have to pay much more than $100 or the equivalent for one of these. I'm surprised if it's the case that someone bid a lot more than that, given how many are available for sale.
The obverses really do look similar. Thanks for the research. Given how suddenly and completely the references changed circa 2014/15 (judging from acsearch as well as cng), my best guess as well was some sort of new edition. I noticed the 2011 book listed on NumisWiki, but wasn't sure if it was intended as an update of the 1986 book, or is a completely different book.