...and it ended up being Pupienus, it's safe to say I need a lot of practice This is the coin I tried emulating And came out similar to this, If anyone wondering, the tools were nothing but a screwdriver!
Well, don't despair. Many a barbarous celator didn't start much better: "Tetricus I," Roman Empire, barbarous radiate, late 3rd century AD, unofficial mint in Gaul or Britain. Obv: IMI TE[...]CVS PF A[...], bearded, radiate head r. Rev: weak barbarous pattern, maybe figure with cornucopiae. 14–15mm, 1.92g.
If you engraved the mold from scratch with nothing more than a screwdriver, I am still very impressed with the results!
That's pretty impressive. Much better than anything I could ever do. And MUCH better than some barbarous coins I've seen
Indeed. You could've shown those "barbarous" celators a thing or two! (*And hey, if you popped a few good hallucinogens, you might have even been up to Celtic standards!)
Looks like you had fun! .... These are the first known coins from ancient Tiffily, a small now-submerged ancient island nation somewhere off the west coast of Anatolia. The exact location is being withheld to prevent opportunists from disturbing the historic site. Dive teams are methodically excavating the city. In addition to coins and the usual remains of ancient civilizations, engraved tablets have also been found and archaeologists are currently working on transcriptions. Apparently, these tablets record the history of Tiffily, including myths and religious beliefs. To date, several coins have been found at the underwater dig site. All have the same iconography: a winged iguana which the researchers have dubbed "Iguanasus". Hopefully, translation of the texts will reveal more details about this mysterious creature and Tiphonian culture. TIFFILY, Tiphonia c. 5th century BCE AR18, 7.4 gm, and AR 17, 7.4 gm Obv: Forepart of winged iguana left Rev: Monogram within dotted square, incuse Ref: SNG Tiffily 1 and 2, respectively This, and one other of similar size and weight, are puzzling. Metallurgic analysis shows them to be 99.9% silver yet they are somewhat porous. Perhaps the copper leached out over the centuries. These three coins are thought to be older than the rest. However, the dies are quite similar. Current thinking is that coins 1-3 were cast rather than struck. TIFFILY, Tiphonia c. 5th century BCE AR 16, 6.0 gm Obv: Forepart of winged iguana left Rev: Monogram within dotted square, incuse Ref: SNG Tiffily 4 This coin is missing from the research lab and it is feared that an unscrupulous member of the archaeology team has sold it on the black market. TIFFILY, Tiphonia c. 5th century BCE AR 16, 7.5 gm Obv: Forepart of winged iguana left Rev: Monogram within dotted square, incuse Ref: SNG Tiffily 5 Most of the coins, including this one, are of terrible workmanship. One would think that these mint workers had no idea what they were doing. Clearly there was no quality control. TIFFILY, Tiphonia c. 5th century BCE AR tetradrachm (Rhodian standard), 15 gm Obv: Forepart of winged iguana left Rev: Monogram within dotted square, incuse Ref: SNG Tiffily 10 This coin is also missing and feared sold. Metallurgic analysis reveals that all Tiphonian coins found so far are an alloy of 90% silver and 10% copper, except for SNG Tiffily 1-3, which are 99.9% silver. ... These were from a fantasy ancient endeavor a few years ago. I was too impatient to order some chunks of mild steel (for the dies) so I went to the hardware store and bought the biggest hex bolts I could find, cut off the heads, and used them. Striking them was comically hard. Flans were squirting out all over the place. I hope someday someone in the Virgin Islands finds one of my lost flyers .
I would love to have one of the Tiphonia coins but it is the sort of thing I would want slabbed. I would not waste time sending it to NGC (aka the Got a Clue Crew) but if you could get one in a less reputable piece of plastic, preferably complete with CACA label, I would consider it ready for prime time. Don't cut off the bolt threads and insert the lower die in a fitting size piece of pipe. drop in die, blank and die and let the sledgehammer have its way.
Credit to you bud, if I turned that out on a first attempt I'd be as pleased as punch. Well done! TIF, those are amazing. Love it.
