Unusual Metal for an Ancient Coin

In addition to these lead coronation issues of John II, there are also fractional lead pieces attribued to the final years of Maurice Tiberius as well as a rare series issued under Constans II. A dear friend, Cecile Morrisson, published a study of this series in a 1981 article: "Monnaies en plomb Byzantines de la fin du VIe et du debut du VIIe siecle" (Riv. It. di Numis. e scienze affini, LXXXIII (1981), 119-132). She labels this on p. 126 a money of necessity produced by local (?) authorities due to a shortage of regular currency occasioned by internal troubles. She postulates they may have appeared in the turbulent years preceding the fall of Phocas, distaste for whom being expressed by the anepigraphic obverse recalling issues of the previous reign.
Although they are not in Sear, Hahn, or DO, to organize them in my own collection, I have assigned them examples with "Sear" numbers. My examples include:


(Sear) 612B. Decanummium. 15 mm. 2.70 gr. 10 hr. C. Morrisson, op. cit., #6-21.


(Sear) 612C. Pentanummium. 13.4 mm. 1.77 gr. 7 hr. C. Morrisson, op. cit.,
#26 (Kovacs collection). The Kovacs specimen is described as having no cross on obverse and having the epsilon accompanied by an A in addition to the cross. These features are not clear on the illustration. Misdescribed? A similar specimen will appear in a future Nomos sale.


(Sear) 612D Pentanummium. 16.5 mm. 2.99 gr. 2 hr. Not in C.M.'s article. The reverse, however, recalls the Antiochene pentanummia of Justinian I (DOC 268d) dated to 529/39.



(Sear) 1028A. Dodecanummium. 16 mm. 4.38 gr. 2 hr. C. Morrisson, op. cit., #27 (this coin). CM discusses on p. 124 the existance of this coin as well as of a six nummia of rougher fabric. "Aucun type monetaire toutefois ne peut avoir servi de modele direct a ce droit, encore moins a la combinaison de celui-ci avec les valeurs egyptiennes du reverse. La question doit rester en suspens dans l'attente de decouvertes ulterieures dont le contexte apporterait des elements nouveaux."

CM's article cites this coin as belonging to a private north German collection, but I found it one day looking through Harlan Berk's office safe (with his permission, of course!) Presumably struck during the turbulent 640s, when the Byzantines were trying to restore imperial rule to Egypt. Foss's Arab-Byzantine Coins, p. 96, notes that the excavations of Abu Mina near Alexandria reveal extensive attempts to replenish the supply of coinage, which evidently ebbed during the Persian occupation. These issues are limited to dodecanummia, although Foss does not indicate the presence of lead coins.

 

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Fascinating essay, @Voulgaroktonou ! Thank you for posting!

 

Thank you, Deacon Ray. I have also enjoyed your many contributions. Mike.

 

That's an interesting artifact @Andres2 !

 

Wow! That's the nicest Hendin 1155 that I've seen!

 

Thank You for posting this information , I had no idea that this series existed. I thought Alexius was the first to try it because of the shortage of copper, this is an eye opener for me. Thank You Voulgaroktonou

 

You're welcome, BenSi.

 

Hope these coins are not too modern for this thread but here are two European siege issues struck in lead.

BREDA Emergency uniface Siege Stuiver struck by the Spanish garrison besieged by the forces of William of Orange. The siege began on August 4 1577 and the city surrendered on October 4.





Denmark CHRISTIANSTAD Emergency uniface 4 Skilling Siege Klippe struck by Danish commandant Hans Vilhelm von Meerheim in the name of King Christian V when Christianstad was besieged by the Swedes during the Scanian War. The siege began in August 1677 and the garrison finally surrendered on 5 Aug. 1678.





CHRISTIANSTAD von Meerheim also struck a uniface 2 Skilling in tin. More precisely, this coin is 78.0874 % tin, 18.853 % lead, 2.513 % oxygen and 0.56% carbon. I guess they were running out of lead.

 

I have a few lead Chinese coins. One is definitely Unofficial, but the other two leave me wondering...

 

Those lead pieces are really special. I have one. I assigned it the ID number "Sear 601v":


Lead. 17-16 mm. 3.70 grams.
Morrison RIN 1981 type 6-21. Similar to Sear 601, which is a Maurice decanummia from an uncertain Italian mint, and MIBE II V140 (but those are copper) "Sicily".

 

Another memorable thread!
I had no knowledge of nickel Bactrian coins, nor was I unaware of nickel coins before the nineteenth century. Very interesting! It's amazing how much I learn every time I access this forum.

I own 3 lead coins from a Roman city called Balsa, Lusitania (currently called Tavira, in the Algarve region of Portugal). There is a very interesting archeological site there, and with the advent of detectorism, these coins that were considered very rare, came to appear. Most of them in deplorable states of conservation, of course. The interesting thing about these coins is precisely that we are not sure about them: what is their real value? Are they real coins or tokens? Can they be votive pieces? By convention, they end up being named such as Roman coins: semis, triens, quadrans, sextans. I doubt, however, that a citizen there could buy a loaf of bread or pay for a drink with his lead coins in a tavern in Trastevere ... Most coins have tuna, dolphins or boats with masts. Others identify the name of the city: BALS. What is speculated is that they were probably minted in the 1st century BC.

 

Well I learned something new. Ancient, Biblical lead coins. Now I have to add to my lists of wants. Nice looking coin @Deacon Ray.

 

LEAD

Ancient SRI LANKA

Sri Lanka, Anuradhapura
Anonymous, 1st C. BCE
PB 1/8 Lakshmi
1.1g, 14.1mm x 7.8mm
RARE
OBV: Hindu Goddess Lakshmi facing. She is the goddess of wealth, fortune, and prosperity. She was a beauty and the wife of Vishnu
REV: (blank)

CHINA

China
Zhou Dynasty 1122-255 BCE
Yi Bi Tang Go Liu Zhu ANT COIN
PB 19x12mm 3.7g
FD-6 Coole 98+

ROMAN EMPIRE

Roman
Tessera ca 1st C CE
Obv: PB Fortuna rudder cornucopia
Rev: DP
Ref: Rostovtsev 2307 Ruggerio 808-9
13mm 1.39g

HEAD BANGERS

Roman Sling Stone 200 BCE - 400 CE Almond Shaped PB lead 37x14mm 41.2g


Roman Sling Stone 200 BCE - 400 CE Almond Shaped PB lead 34x14mm 42.4g

 

I just picked up another to add to my collection, a bit off center for the obverse but nice ( For these ) on the reverse. Its 4.4gm CLBC tried to recreate the coin in line drawing but it was a difficult task, rarely are they better than this.

ALEXIUS PB TETARTERON S-Unlisted DOC 37 CLBC 2.5.1 ( Year 1092)

OBV Full length figures of John II beardless on r., and st Demetrius, holding between them labarum on long shaft. Emperor wears stemma, divitision, collar piece and jeweled loros of a simplified type. Saint wears short military tunic , breastplate, and saigon; holds sword, point resting on ground, in r. hand.

REV Full length figures of Alexius on l. and of Irene, holding between them cross on long shaft. Both wear stemma, divitision, collar piece and jeweled loros of a simplified type.

 

You folks might feel this coin is modern. It is handmade and my oldest lead coin.


Sumatra, Jambi (Djambi) Sultanate, tin-lead, 1.38g pitis 22mm, Sri Pangeran Ratu, early 1600s
Javanese inscription Sri Pangeran Ratu
cf. Zeno 195611

Coins like these were cast in an alloy of lead and tin, in Chinese shapes, with Javanese inscriptions, by several sultanates in what is now Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia. This one is probably from Sumatra. There are also examples with Chinese characters and "Malay Arabic" characters.

I thought about posting this coin for the thread on Dead Languages but of course Javanese is far from dead, with 82 million native speakers in Indonesia. If you are having trouble deciphering the coin follow the link to the Zeno example which renders it in modern Javanese style.

 

Nickel was first isolated and classified as a chemical element in 1751 by Axel Fredrik Cronstedt, who initially mistook the ore for a coppermineral, in the cobalt mines of Los, Hälsingland, Sweden. According to Wikipedia. I believe everything I read on Wikipedia.

So how did the Bactrians do it? Time travel?

 

I also would like to know this, but I'd imagine it was via a method similar to the production of Orichalcum, where they blended what we today know to be ores of Zinc with Copper ore, which produced the desired brassy alloy upon smelting even if they didn't know the why or how behind it.

This thread has been awesome, with the existence of Cu/Ni alloy ancient coins being the most interesting thing I've learned today. Thanks everyone!

 

Meteor?

 

There is an unfortunate tendency for modern Europeans to take credit for inventing things that were known to some ancient people and not remembered in a continuous string down to their time. The best known example of this is discovery of America by Christopher Columbus who may not have known about Vikings and did not recognize the people he saw when he got there as having beaten him to the claim. They were, after all, not citizens of a country he recognized as part of the civilized world. Of course if he thought he was in India, even he did not claim to be the discoverer of the New World but just a new way of getting there. There is no evidence that the Baktrians ever isolated nickel as an element but just that they had coins with 75% copper and 25% nickel. Did they find that alloy? Did they process it from a meteorite (there should be iron in them if so). Did they trade for the material for these few coins from a third party whose knowledge of the matter is even more of a mystery than than the coins themselves? We probably will never know.

What I find interesting is how such a minor metal in the history of coinage has become so dominant even though most examples are an alloy. Considering how well 1938 Jefferson nickels have held up after so many years compared to the one cent copper/zinc abominations, it is obvious that the metal is not a bad choice for the use. They do not, however, bury well in the earth for long periods as my examples illustrated.

 

Curiosity about the Copper-Nickel Bactrian coinage led me to find this 1957 article "Nickel in Ancient Bronzes" at https://www.jstor.org/stable/500603

Among other things they analyzed 5 Cu-Ni Bactrians and found nickel at between 8.6-13.8%, not quite like our modern 25% Nickel clad coinage in the USA but more like our first "Flying-Eagle" small Cents at 12% Nickel, though the other metals in the Bactrian alloy may have had a whitening effect too. They analyzed the composition of some Bactrian coins and relative proportions of minor metal constituents in the alloy to high-nickel Chinese "Paitung-White Copper" and determined that the the origin the the Bactrian coins was from the same Nickel-Copper Sulfide ores; the "Hweili deposits of Sikang Province, China."


That province no longer exists: "In 1950, following the defeat of the Kuomintang by the Communists in the Chinese Civil War, Xikang was split along the Yangtze into Sikang to the east and a separate Chamdo Territory to the west. Chamdo was merged into Tibet Autonomous Region in 1965. The rest of Sikang was merged into Sichuan in 1955."

It seems that the raw metal produced from the pure ore was marginally more nickel-rich, so I guess the metal was extended to a degree with presumably cheaper copper prior to the striking of the coins.

The article is quite interesting if you're into ancient metallurgy, and like the Roman Copper-Zinc Orichalcum shows that the ancients didn't need to be able to isolate and purify an elemental metal to be able to make use of it.