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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;dougsmit, post: 2197880, member: 19463&quot;]Often the best answer when trying to read a coin is to find similar coins that will answer questions in comparison.&nbsp; To this end I offer my well worn coin with the same&nbsp; LΔωΔEK weighing 25.7g.&nbsp; That pretty well justifies your coin being a hemidrachm.&nbsp; Mine is Nilus with crocodile couch - the other choice than the hippo which I don&#039;t own so I&#039;ll link to an acsearch coin.</p><p><a href="http://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=1818706" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=1818706" rel="nofollow">http://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=1818706</a>&nbsp; </p><p>[ATTACH=full]427902[/ATTACH] </p><p>Notice both Nilus varieties have the Nilometer reading of 16 indicating flood level required for a good flooding of the fields. You won&#039;t find this number on coins with other deities like Euthenia (Abundance). </p><p><br /></p><p>If you are to collect Alexandrian it really helps to learn the faces of Trajan, Hadrian and Antoninus Pius.&nbsp; They are, with a bit of practice, easily distinguished without legends just as are the friends you see each day.&nbsp; Hadrian always includes a part or all of Trajan&#039;s name before his own and fools new collectors who forget that Greek does not write the initial H leaving <b>AΔPIA</b>(NOC) easily overlooked.&nbsp; It gets worse when you note that the Greek R is a P with a very small top loop making it easily confused with the I next to it.&nbsp; No better is the way the pair <b>A+Δ </b>looks like two identical letters leaving what looks like AAIIA for us to read as Hadrian.&nbsp; Perhaps you see why I say it is better if you make friends with the faces of these guys?&nbsp; Silver tetradrachms are often a bit sharper but the same &#039;handwriting&#039; issues are clear on the coin below (also year 12).&nbsp; The face, however, is the same. These ID&#039;s were worked out by museum scholars who have a hundred or thousand coins to use for comparison. When you have a single coin to ID, you may benefit from seeking photos of similar looking coins rather than just catalog listings that can make it hard to tell what it is you have in hand. </p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]427901[/ATTACH] </p><p><br /></p><p>May I mention that your hemidrachm is a very nice coin which I for one would welcome in my trays.&nbsp; Thank you for sharing your excellent photos.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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