A fit of excessive bidding brought me five new Sasanian drachms - all the same - all different. All five are Peroz 459-484 AD using his third crown (wings) and having a barbarized version of the king's name at reverse left where a date would be on a dated coin. They are from five different mints. All are decent examples but fully cleaned and bright making them hard to photograph. Some are easy to read while others have voids caused by the thin flans and competition for metal by the two dies with winners determined by the alignment and strength of the strike. Some are made messy by slight doubling or dies sliding when struck. Usually we 'grade' coins by wear but I most strongly believe that strike is much more important with Sasanian. It makes no difference if a little detail has worn away if important details were never present due to voids from striking. For example, lets look at this drachm from the Court Mint (followed the king) BBA. Note the strong shoulders on the portrait. The 3H die axis (on all of these 5 coins) makes the voids caused by the shoulders fall on the right side so we will show a rotated close up of that part of the coin making it easier to read the mintmark. This image shows the two 'dents' left where there was not enough metal to fill both those shoulders and the reverse. Just below the left void are the two B's which look a bit like nested allen wrenches or hex keys. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hex_key If you look very carefully you may see the slightest trace of the A inside that left void. It is not worn off; it just never was struck due to unfortunate alignment with those shoulders. Doe that make the coin undesirable or uncollectable? I might call this drachm high grade were it not for this one little problem. Our second example is from the AT mint attributed to Azerbaijan. The coin is of similar grade but the left void from the shoulder wipes out the lower legs of the right side attendant leaving the mintmark intact. Note that the left side (rear) shoulder was not cut as deeply as the other so it did not create a void wiping out the upper part of the attendant. Coins of Peroz often come on large flans centered with varying degrees of accuracy. I see this as a nice coin choosing not to hold the centering against it. Making the close photos was fun so you get to see this one, too. Remembering that these mintmarks read right to left you now can see the full A (rather like an upside down Greek Pi Π) incase you didn't know what you missed on the BBA coin. The point of this post is that there are things that may or may not make a difference to you as a collector. Do you care whether the mintmark is bold or is simply 'identifiable' enough. If you only want one Sasanian coin or one Peroz (an interesting guy some might even admire compared to some of his ilk) perhaps this detail means nothing. Will the price of the coins reflect such things? My scan of online prices suggests that it makes little difference to many people with not knowing or caring that the coins are mintmarked. I like Peroz. His coins are midway between the early Sasanians like Shapur I who conquered Valerian and the super common late coins of Khusru II most often seen. Show your Peroz or your Sasanians with voided details whether or not you care. I have the others if anyone is interested in different mints but I suspect this thread has already driven off most. For the record, Peroz was issuing these good silver half dollar size coins at the time Rome was busy 'falling' and issuing little scraps of copper and rare gold. A study of Sasanian history hardly makes you want to call them civilized unless you compare them with the other options of that day.
I know nothing about coins like this. However, you do make them sound very interesting. I have been thinking of picking up a few like these for the last several months. Perhaps it is time that I buy a few. Thanks for the detailed photos.
My Peroz (AY mint = Susa) doesn't suffer from the shoulder hog problem: ... but my Kavad I (488-497) certainly does: The mint name is obliterated, but I've tentatively assigned DL based on style. VERY unsure of that though...
Thanks for the write-up @dougsmit, very nice explanation of a common issue with Sasanian coins. Here's my Peroz from BBA mint, showing all three letters clearly: And one from AYL mint (uncertain location, probably in central Iraq or northwestern Iran):
The AYL shows it is not always the shoulders that causes the problem. Here we see voids from the cheek and head.
This lines up with the high cheekbone but is pretty well filled out on both sides compared to many. Look at this WH with a row of three voids. In the center is the cheek, left of that (remember we have 3H die axis orientation) is the crown center and over on the border we have the void from the ball on top of the crown. Notice also that the ball itself is missing detail since the metal failed to fill either side fully. Again the thin flans required shallow die engraving to avoid such problems. However the mintmark and shoulders filled in well. Perhaps the strike was a bit tilted in favor of that side at the expense of the other which is the opposite of the first coins I showed on this thread.
I have this beautiful Peroz drachm (all details clear), but I don't quite understand the mint name. Is it Amul?
My impression is that it is not AM, because the first letter doesn't look enough like an A. The vertical strokes of the A should be straight up-and down, rather than curved like yours, which looks more like an S if I have to guess. [The Pahlavi letter A looks more like _l_l rather than the S, which is more like _)_) .] Of course, I've frequently shared my frustration with attempting to read Pahlavi inscriptions, so take my opinion for what it's worth.
