About a year ago CBD posted a thread asking members to show their El Cheapo coins. In one post, Sallent showed one of his ancient Indian purchases and detailed on how it was one of the oldest coins in the history of the world. Well Sallent, you sold me. Around Christmas I got this 1/8 Satamana with a decent amount of detail: The flip is a bit cloudy for some reason, but whatever. This is an awesome coin. It was made only about 50 years after the invention of coins, by the same society that made arguably the first coins in the world. And I am holding it in my hand. We’re not done yet - the seller included this Mauryan punchmarked coin as well: I haven’t identified the symbols yet, but this coin was made when Alexander the Great conquered India, making it a great historical coin to me. Thank you @Sallent for the suggestion! I’ll try to get that bar satamana (50 years older) sometime.
Good choices to dip your toes into the waters of the ancient eastern goodies! There were my first two AR eastern types! Your may have the same symbols as mine, "GH 574" is a pretty common type! http://coinindia.com/galleries-maurya.html
well, according to sources..yeah, he did.. he then handed it back...that is, he did finally defeat the ruling persons army in battle, anyway.
The problem here is that the definition of "India" is very subjective. If you are talking about the current boundaries, then maybe. India was very fragmented at this time and some of the areas that were traditionally India was conquered by Alexander...
Great link to the ID of these coins. Does anyone know the silver grade of these coins? I read that they are 20 to 30% copper. Is this true? Thank You
