Bought this two years ago and am just now getting around to making a proper label for it. All that the original seller had was: "Alexander III ('The Great') (336-323 BC). Ae. Macedonian mint" From sources here and elsewhere, this is what I have so far: ---------------------------- 8< -------------------------- Alexander the Great Type 1 (quiver type) bronze Obv: Herakles in a lion skin headdress facing right (is it Herakles or Alexander dressed *up* as Herakles?) Rev: Quiver with chevron above; "Of Alexander"; four chalkoi (hemiobol), club; trident head (spear head) below the club * I would like to get the actual Greek letters used here? Is this right? Αλέξανδρος (My coin is not as nice as, but looks like the first coin on this page here. Are they the same? Is mine too worn to tell for sure?
Yep, looks like you've already found a match/reference, assuming the coin shown on Reid Goldsborough's site is correctly attributed AΛEΞΑΝΔΡοΥ
The ancient Greeks did not use lower-case letters. In the old days, scholars who studied numismatics studied Greek and to them the lower-case shapes immediately evoked the letter. Numerous SNGs have lower-case transcriptions of upper-case letters and this unfortunate practice has not entirely been discontinued. However, most collectors are not fluent in Greek and do not immediately recognize "ν" as "N". I encourage everyone to transcribe Greek letters on coins with Greek letters in print that look like the letters on the coin. Usually that requires using upper-case letters.
Yes, the link is the same coin as yours. Its Alexander III (the Great) dressed up as Heracles with the lionscalp. If have this one, type I B , I'm not sure about the mark under the club (of Heracles) looks like a mouse
Welllllll Maybeee! The OP and my example show what I consider a very interesting use of the 'little O' which in Greek is Omicron. On my coin it is just a dot. The 'big O' or Omega is a completely different letter. This tiny omicron is particularly common on Alexandrian tetradrachms of Diocletian about 600 years after Alexander as shown here. Note the omicron's are half the height of other letters.
