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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Parthicus, post: 3074569, member: 81887&quot;]Another recent auction win, of a coin I&#039;ve been seeking for some time:</p><p>[ATTACH=full]773089[/ATTACH] </p><p>Arab-Sasanian, Eastern Sistan series.&nbsp; AR drachm (31 mm, 3.34 g).&nbsp; &quot;Salih &#039;Imad&quot;.&nbsp; No date (c.780s AD). Obverse: Cartoonish bust of Khusro II, Arabic inscription in margin &quot;Bismillah Salih &#039;Imad&quot;.&nbsp; Reverse: Bad copy of Sassanian-Style reverse, blundered Pahlavi mintmark SK (Sakastan), no date.&nbsp; Cf. Album 89C, Wilkes 85.&nbsp; This coin: Triskeles 23, lot 670.</p><p><br /></p><p>The earliest Islamic silver coins were based on copies of Sasanian drachms.&nbsp; This template was replaced in most of the Islamic world around 700 AD as the &quot;post-reform&quot; silver dirhams entered circulation, with a novel design containing only Arabic inscriptions.&nbsp; However, Sassanian-style silver coinage persisted along the edges of the Muslim world for many decades.&nbsp; I wrote a previous post about the coinage of Eastern Sistan, a region along the border of modern Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan:</p><p><a href="https://www.cointalk.com/threads/arab-sasanian-from-the-edge-of-the-empire.311813/" class="internalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.cointalk.com/threads/arab-sasanian-from-the-edge-of-the-empire.311813/">https://www.cointalk.com/threads/arab-sasanian-from-the-edge-of-the-empire.311813/</a></p><p>This coin is one of the latest in the Eastern Sistan series, and you can really see the decline in artistic standards.&nbsp; I made this figure to show a direct comparison of the original Sasanian design, a faithful Arab-Sasanian copy, and early and late Eastern Sistan versions:</p><p>[ATTACH=full]773099[/ATTACH] </p><p>Also of note, many of the later Eastern Sistan coins bear names, presumably of local governors.&nbsp; Unfortunately, historical records of the region at that time are poor, so many of these names are unknown to history, and &quot;Salih &#039;Imad&quot; is one of those forgotten men.&nbsp; Although this coin has clearly degraded from its Sasanian model, I do think the &quot;cartoon&quot; style is not without its merits.&nbsp; Post your related coins here.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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