Seleucid Serrate Coins • Bottle Caps

Agreed with @DonnaML ... However, I posted a BILLON Carthage Serrate and a BRONZE Seleukid... why would you want to shave from a not precious material? It has been debated several times, we have posted it a lot before on CT, also. No one truly has an answer, and they have not had any definitive information from the contemporary minting as to why...

I think this should be explored on Leonard Nimoy's "In Search Of..."

 

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Not to flog a dead horse (at least not too much I hope): it occurs to me that filing these serrations must have been a really time-consuming task. So even with, say, slaves to do this scut work it must have seriously cut down on the rate of production. And anyone who’s worked (as I have) for a large, structured organization would appreciate how much of a turd-in-the-punchbowl welcome this kind of slowdown might have. So maybe that’s why the practice was discontinued.
And, as far as doing it to base-metal coinage,
don’t overlook the possibility that the PURPOSE of the exercise may not have been at all understood so far down the bureaucratic chain as the actual production level. (“Yeah, I guess they want us to do it to all of this stuff, so shut up and do it...”) The Kevin Effect?

 

Agree with Donna and Alegandron, no reason needed. Sometimes you just do it because it's cool.

 

It would certainly have been time-intensive to manually add the serrations to the Roman flans (v-shaped notches fairly symmetrical from edge side to edge side). For the Seleucid coins with the "bottle cap" appearance, it looks like they were cast that way (more of scalloped edge that sometimes appears (to me) to flow off of the sides). Re-posting from prior post an unstruck bronze planchet with a flan extension for a Seleucid coin, along with two Seleucid coins of Demetrios I Soter (162-150 BC). Comments?

 

They really serve no purpose, so I assume they are decorative only. They were cast that way before striking as seen on @Carl Wilmont example for which I was the under bidder. The Macedonians were the first that I I know of to do this, and the Seleucids were copying not long after starting with Seleucus IV. The majority would have been struck at Apamea, Antioch, and Ake Ptolemais. These are in no way related to Roman serrate and probably served a different purpose and manufacture.

 

Thanks for sharing this background information and the link to the very nice "Seleucid identification site"- I really like the way this tool has been designed.

 

Nice bottle cap coins all!

This is one of those Makedonian serrated coins @David@PCC was talking about, even though it lost its serrations. It is as David said, minted exactly around the time of the reign of Seleukos IV.

Kingdom of Macedon. temp. Philip V – Perseus. 187-168 BC. Serrate Æ. Amphipolis mint.
Obverse: Diademed head of Poseidon right.
Reverse: ΜΑΚΕ-ΔΟΝΩΝ. Club; one monogram below and above; all within wreath.
Reference: AMNG 48; SNG Cop. -, vergl. 1297; Hoover 328.
10.75g; 25mm


Seleukos IV Philopator 187-175 BC. Serrate Æ. Antioch mint.
Obverse: Laureate head of Apollo right.
Reverse: Apollo standing left, holding arrow, leaning on tripod; monogram to inner left.
Reference: HGC 9, 584.
9.32g; 22mm

 

I appreciate the feedback. I want it to be easy and fast to use. I try to add new entries daily.