The examples I've seen appear prone to the full catalog of ancient coin problems: irregular flans that result in incomplete devices, flan cracks, porosity, heavy test cuts, and ample circulation wear. I acquired this one a few days ago that seems better than most... ATTICA, Athens. Circa 286-262/1 BC. AR Tetradrachm, 17.1g, 25x19mm, 5h. Obv.: Helmeted head of Athena right, with profile eye. Rev.: AΘE; Owl standing right, head facing; olive sprig and crescent behind; all within incuse square. Reference: Kroll 15; SNG Copenhagen 63. Intermediate style. Does anyone know why the flan makers got lazy during this period? In general the dies don't seem any less well-crafted than before.
That is indeed one of the reasons quality control can suffer. I'm just wondering if there was a specific historical situation that caused the demand (if that's the dynamic actually in play).
I think mine falls into that category. Attica, Athens (353 - 294 B.C) AR Tetradrachm O: Helmeted head of Athena right R: AΘE Owl standing right, head facing, olive sprig and crescent to left; all within incuse square. 16.59g 21 mm Kroll -; HGC 4, 1599 Ex. Numismatik-Naumann, Auction 52, Lot 126
According to Josiah Ober, the early 3rd century was actually the peak of Athenian prosperity (though not its philosophy, to be sure). That could explain rising money demand, I suppose.
I've got a fair example with a 1960s provenance. In classical (5th century) times, Athens had two main sources of silver - the Laurion mines in Attica and tribute from its Delian League "allies". According to Kroll in The Athenian Agora, this later, 4th century emission was struck from less pure silver than the classical tets, probably from silver provided by allies in the Athenian fight against Demetrios Poliorketes.
After Attica-Athens, other Greek cities tried to follow up with the new "Monetary Civilization"if I dare say. They minted similar coins and began diffusing the" modern economy"at that time. Soon many cities outside Greece itself decided to say "Farewell to Barter". Those could be Sicily or even Antioch. In ancient numismatics, such issues outside Attica might be called "Ancient Imitation". But the fact might not be that, I think. The idea of Maria Theresa coins comes often to mind when thinking of those Ancient Imitations. They were not a forgery. They do represent the expansion of the new monetary era. That might lead us perhaps to a new thread which could reveal the first or next steps in our early civilization.
Nice coin, @John Anthony. Yours is a better quality one than many other examples. As of date, should the intermediate period started earlier around 350 BC instead? As to why flan makers became lazier, I think it may be caused by the Athenian defeat at the Peloponnesian War around 400 BC. These days there are so many classical tetradrachms in the market, that a good quality intermediate doesn’t seem to appear that often.
This is super, thank you Nemo! Your quote from Kroll about the position of the ethnic as a diagnostic clinches it... " ...the changed position of the alpha on the coins’ reverses. On all earlier owl tetradrachms (Figs. 2, 4) the ΑΘΕ ethnic begins higher, at the side of the owl’s head, with the alpha’s left diagonal touching the head at eye level. On the pi-style owls, the alpha is positioned below the head, its left diagonal wedged in the notch where the head meets the body,15 thus permitting every pi-style tetradrachm to be distinguished from earlier specimens of the same denomination instantaneously." My coin clearly exhibits this placement, not to mention that the flan is quite thick and you can even see the folds along the edge...
What I can remember of this period is this and it is a very short statement covering a long and complicated issue. Circa about 392 B.C. Athens resumed the production of a silver tetradrachm coinage. At this time they adopted a profile eye on the face of Athena. These coins seem to have been struck using a number of different styles including mine which I refer to as the "Doll" face. Sometime about 353 B.C. the authorities in Athens decided to restrike the older coins and they used a rather extraordinary method of doing so. The older coins were basically folded over and then restruck. This seems like a remarkably difficult way of doing it but i guess the process would completely obliterate the under type. This group of coins are known as the "PI" style tetradrachms as the palment is in the shape of a double letter pi. This process may have lasted till sometime around 300 B.C. Athens Tetradrachm c. 392 B.C. Athens Tetradrachm c. 353B.C.
So Kroll estimates that the artificial overvaluation of the restruck coins came in between 3% and 5%. I wonder how that played out in commerce. Let's say I (as the State) officially overvalue your tetradrachms as worth 25 obols instead of 24. That means for every 25 coins you turn in for remonitization, I get to keep one. Good for my coffers. But that also means that when you go to spend your tetradrachm, you have to be given change for a tetradrachm plus an obol. For instance, if you buy something that costs a drachm and spend a tetradrachm, you would receive in change three drachms and an obol. Is that roughly the idea?
Wow, that's gorgeous. Such a great strike! For some reason I've always liked these, and though it may be blasphemous to say it, I actually prefer the design on these to the Archaic,, amond-eyed (or bug-eyed- there, I said it) Athenas of before. Love the fluffy looking little owls, too.
I like the intermediates but they are all on such tight flans.... How about my transitional to the Pi type. Athens, AR Tetradrachm Obv:– Head of Athena right with eye seen in true profile, wearing crested helmet ornamented with three olive leaves and floral scroll Rev:– owl standing right, head facing, to right ATE in large lettering, to left olive sprig and crescent Minted in Athens c. B.C. 393 - 370. Reference:– Flamen p. 126, 1 (Pi I); Svoronos Athens plate 19, 17; SNG Cop - Ex-Forum Ancient Coins 16.699g, 24.31mm, 270o The following information was provide by Forum with the coin:- "Transitional style tetradrachms include all of the wide spectrum of variants with the eye in profile issued after the classic "old style" almond eye tetradrachms but before the broad thinner flan "new style" tetradrachms. Recent research has classified variations of the transitional style - Pi Type, Quadridigité Style, Heterogeneous Style and sub-groups of the styles, and proposed chronologies for the different styles and groups. This coin is the earliest transitional type, the first Pi style type, essentially identical to the "old style" with the exception of the eye in profile. The "Pi" designation is based on the P shape of the floral spiral and palmette ornamentation on the helmet bowl. The coin can be classified as Pi style, group 1. The floral ornament on examples this early do not yet resemble Pi." Not quite as Doll faced as the lovely example by @Terence Cheesman
I believe it would be a service to the CT group as a whole if one of our members who has kept up with current terminology would post an illustrated definition of the major groups of owls from Archaic to New Style. I am not suggesting a detailed breakdown of the rare sub-types but just the ones the average collector will encounter easily. Of course it would be nice to include a few words that explain what makes a Transitional or Intermediate different from a Classical etc. Yes, as a matter of fact, someone did slice my Pi. When we have a significant feature like the evidence of the folded flan, it is good to include an edge view. Do we have any idea what coins were hammered and folded to make these owls? I assume they were tested foreign silver of allied states perhaps corrected for weight.
Kroll suggests that all early 4th-century Owl Tets were remonetized in Athens, which explains the dearth of examples of those types in Athenian hoards. Examples from the first half of the century are found more so outside of Athens - coins that had traveled and thereby escaped the restriking edict. Also, any foreign silver that was being traded as equal to Athenian tetradrachms would also have been subjected to the "improvement." Small change was left alone. I repost the article that Nemo linked in his previous thread. This paper answers many questions - a must-read for anyone interested in Owl Tets, or ancient remonitization schemes in general... https://www.ascsa.edu.gr/uploads/media/hesperia/hesperia.80.2.0229.pdf
I have this notes that I gathered when I was trying to attribute my owls. Can't remember all the sources, some are: https://forums.collectors.com/discussion/808801/athenian-owl-thread https://www.gretaparker.com/pages/athenian-owl.html Archaic Owls were the first Owls, minted c. 510 to 480 BC. That the first Owls were issued c. 510 BC, at about the same time as the establishment of Athenian democracy under Kleisthenes, is only fitting. Owls appeared on Athenian coins before Archaic Owls, on the obverse of some of the Wappenmünzen, which is a German word for "crest money" or "heraldic money." The Wappenmünzen were the first coins of Athens, beginning c. 545 BC and then produced in a multiplicity of different types, and they're traditionally thought to have been issued by different Athenian aristocratic families, each type representing a different family, though it's more likely that these were state-issued coins referring to different religious festivals. It was the addition of Athena to the obverse and the pairing of her image with that of her owl on the reverse that turned Athenian coins into "Owls," with this iconography continuing on Athen's silver coins for nearly 500 years. All Archaic, Classical, and Intermediate Style Owls (though not New Style Owls, the last Owls) depict on the reverse an olive sprig, sometimes called an olive twig or olive spray. This refers to Athens' large export of olive oil, which along with silver, pottery, and military success were the main reasons for her prosperity. All Owls feature an AQE ethnic on the reverse, an ethnic being a type of legend identifying a people. The AQE ethnic is sometimes written in English instead as AOE or A-TH-E. The three Greek letters are alpha, theta, and epsilon, with the theta appearing as an O with a dot in the middle and having a TH sound. (In modern Greek theta is represented as an O with a line in the middle, while earlier in Greece it was represented as an O with either a cross or X in the middle). As with most ancient Greek coins, the genitive (possessive) case was used for the legend, so instead of "Athens" it means "Of the Athenians." Archaic Owls are crudely styled. Classical Owls, sometimes called an Old-Style Owls, were introduced c. 478 BC and likely continued to c. 393 BC. In contrast to Archaic Owls, Athena's helmet on Classical Owls is decorated with a floral scroll (flowery design), sometimes called a palmette (stylized palm leaf), as well as three olive leaves, and the reverse includes a crescent moon. Like a wreath of triumph, the floral scroll probably refers to the Greek victory over the Persians, though some regard it as merely decorative. Some regard the crescent moon as merely referring to owls' nocturnal activities. Others believe it refers to the Battle of Marathon, though this battle took place during a full moon. It more likely refers to the Battle of Salamis, which was more decisive and took place shortly before the addition of this feature to Owls. As with Archaic Owls, the reverse includes an olive sprig. A Mass Classical Owl, is sometimes called Standardized Owl (though they're far from completely standardized) or Conventionalized Owl. Mass Owls are both the most common and most celebrated of Athenian Owl tetradrachms. Compared with most Early Classical Owls, sometimes (confusingly) called Transitional Owls, on Mass Classical Owls Athena's hair sweeps across her forehead in one series of parallel curves, the owl's head is straight and body long, and the owl's tail feathers end in a single prong rather than appearing as separately delineated feathers. As with all Classical and Archaic Owls, Athena retains her archaic frontal, more or less almond-shaped eye. This anachronism, which happened despite the introduction of perspective and realism on coins elsewhere in Greece at the time, was no doubt a deliberate means Athens used to retain easy recognizably and acceptance of Owls as money throughout the known world and the profits it earned from minting them. As on other Classical Owls, Athena wears what's typically described as a necklace and an earring. But the necklace is actually the top of her aegis, or breastplate, which extends from her shoulder to her neck and which is not always on the flan. The earring in turn is likely a hinge used for connecting the helmet to the aegis. Most Classical Owl tetradrachms have flans that are too small for the horse-hair crest of Athena's helmet. Because of their relative scarcity, full-crest Owls can carry a substantial premium in the marketplace today. Despite the popularity of Mass Owls, their dating and attribution is one of the great under-explored areas of ancient numismatic scholarship. Chester Starr in 1970 called this area a "wasteland" and said a die study of these coins, because of their sheer numbers, would be a "terrific labor." Peter van Alfen in 2009 described Mass Owls as "notoriously untrainable issues." Because of the number of dies used, David Sear said in a 2009 email interview that he hasn't found a single die match over the years involving any of the Owls sent to him to authenticate with the specimens published in Corpus of the Ancient Coins of Athens by John Svoronos (completed after the author's death by Behrendt Pick and translated into English by L.W. Higgie in 1975), which illustrates more Mass Owls than any other published reference. Some scholars and dealers, however, have attempted to more narrowly date Mass Owls according to style. Mass Owls are most commonly dated c. 449 to 413 BC, in the U.S. at least. That's how Sear dated them in his 1978 standard Greek Coins and Their Values. But new hoard evidence has surfaced since then suggesting that different dating may be more appropriate. The 449 date comes from the Athenian Coinage Decree, which sought to force Athens' allies to use Athenian coins, weights, and measures and which at one point was thought to have occurred c. 449 BC. But over the past half century the body of evidence and opinion has lowered the dating of this decree to c. 425 BC or even as late as 414 BC. Further, hoard evidence suggests that the minting of the Early Classical Owls ceased sooner than previously thought. Consequently, more numismatists now regard the minting of the Mass Owls to have started earlier than c. 449 BC. John Kroll argued for a date of c. 454 BC, corresponding to the move of the Athenian League treasury from Delos to Athens, in his 1993 book The Athenian Agora, Vol. XXVI: The Greek Coins the Athenian Agora and his paper "What About Coinage?" in the 2009 book Interpreting the Athenian Empire, edited by Ma, et al. Christophe Flament used the date c. 460 BC in his 2007 book Le monnayage en argent d'Athènes. The 413 date comes from Sparta's disruption that year of the operation of Athens' silver mines at Laurion during the Peloponnesian War, which Athens would eventually lose to Sparta with the aid of Persia c. 404 BC. But there's no proof that Athens totally stopped minting its silver coinage afterward, and the evidence argues that minting continued, with Athens continuing to profit from the melting of other cities' silver coinage and the restriking of it into Owls and with other cities continuing to use the widely accepted Owls, including Sparta, Athens' enemy. No doubt, however, the number of Owls minted dropped considerably after c. 413 BC. Colin Kraay in his 1976 book Archaic and Classical Greek Coins contended that the production of Owls virtually ceased from c. 411 to 407 BC and totally ceased from c. 406 to 393 BC, with 393 BC corresponding to the arrival of a large influx of Persian money as Athens regained its independence and democracy, which is the most commonly used date for the initiation of the profile-eye Intermediate Style Owls of the fourth century BC. Kroll, on the other hand, argued that Owls continued to be minted during this period, with the Emergency Issue silver-plated fourree tetradrachms struck c. 406 to 404 BC intended for internal use only. Flament used c. 404 BC as the terminus date. As evidence of the lack of agreement, the dating of Mass Owls by dealers and auction houses is all over the place. In some cases, Mass Classical Owls are grouped in the same category as Early Classical Owls, leading to an earlier start date. The dating includes but is undoubtedly not limited to the following: c. 449-413 BC (after Sear), c. 460-404 BC (after Flament), c. 479-393 BC (after SNG Cop.), c. 454-404 BC (after SNG München), c. 480-400 BC (after SNG Delepierre), c. 449-404 BC (after Dewing), after c. 449 BC (after Starr), c. 490-430 BC, c. 479-413 BC, c. 454-415 BC, c. 449-393 BC, c. 449-410 BC, c. 449-415 BC, and c. 448-415 BC. Some auction houses break down the dating of Mass Owls very narrowly based on style, giving them dates, for instance, of c. 440 BC, c. 435 BC, c. 430 BC, c. 425 BC, c. 415 BC, and c. 410 BC. Paul Szego made some interesting observations about the stylistic transition of Mass Owls in a January/February 1942 Coin Collector's Journal article, and Svoronos illustrated this transition well, though his dating of c. 431-359 BC is too late. Flament divided Mass Owls into three groups, c. 460-440 BC, c. 440-420 BC, and c. 420-404 BC, based on style, not die, analysis. Mass Owls that were likely issued earlier, compared with those issued later, tend to have the following characteristics: • Athena has a wider, smiling mouth that can appear as a smirk rather than a short mouth that's neutral in affect or that curves slightly downward, forming a frown. • Athena has a more protruding rather than a flatter face. • The eye of Athena is smaller and more symmetrical, with the curve forming the upper half mirroring the curve forming the lower half, rather than the two sides being asymmetrical. • The floral scroll on Athena's helmet is smaller rather than larger. • The owl has shorter rather than longer claws. • The ethnic consists of smaller rather than larger letters. • The incuse square is more clearly visible on the coin's flan rather than being off it. The above follows from the logic that earlier Mass Classical Owls, perhaps issued between c. 454 and 431 BC, with the date 431 BC corresponding to the beginning of the Peloponnesian War, are more similar stylistically to Early Classical Owls minted between c. 478 and 454 BC. With the huge numbers of Mass Owls minted, with the many different dies used, and with the many different die engravers likely used, there are no doubt plenty of exceptions to the above generalities, and there's nothing that appears remotely conclusive to date Mass Owls to specific decades. Perhaps the most interesting difference between the earlier and later Mass Owls is that with the later issues Athena has lost her confident smile. These later Owls were likely minted during the Peloponnesian War, which Athens lost. On subsequent Intermediate and New Styles Owls, Athena would never regain that confident smile, just as Athens never regained her preeminent position in the Greek world, at least militarily. Owls for the most part weren't used for everyday commerce because their buying power was far too high. Compared with smaller fractions, they show up infrequently in archeological excavations in the Athenian agora, or marketplace. They were used in Athens instead for large transactions such as building projects, payment for war supplies and personnel, and international trade. As international trade coins, they were also used by other cities for the collection of tribute and taxes and by traders and merchants for large commercial transactions. Owls were employed heavily in international trade, but they weren't the first coins accepted across international borders. That coin would have been the Aegina Turtle. Athenian Owls, however, were minted in far greater numbers, traveled much further, and were imitated all over the known world at the time. The coins that replaced the Owl as the most commonly used international currency were Alexander the Great's silver tetradrachms and gold staters, which in turn were replaced by the Roman denarius. Mass Classical Owls differ stylistically in other ways besides the differences spelled out above. Some specimens have a lock of hair in front of Athena's forehead, a pronounced dot on the owl's forehead, a theta without a central dot, or an A with a tilted rather than straight crossbar. The subtly smiling mouth, close to symmetrical eye, and longer face of coin #53 suggests it's an earlier Mass Classical Owl, minted during the height of Athenian power to finance the building of the Parthenon and other projects. Athena's head is still well centered, with all of her facial features still on the flan. Of the 118 non-plated Mass Classical Owls with more than a fair chance of having been minted in Athens rather than being of Eastern origin that are documented in Svoronos along with their weights, 72.0 percent are between 17.00 grams and 17.20 grams, while 85.6 percent are between 16.50 grams and 17.20 grams. Intermediate Style Owls, also called Late Classical Owls, Hellenistic Owls, or (confusingly) Transitional Pi-Style II (Bingen Pi II) Owls, retain the same basic Athena and owl iconography as the previous Classical Owls, though changes were made. The design is both more refined and coarser. In contrast to the almond-shaped frontal eye of Classical and Archaic Owls, the eye on Athena finally appears realistically in profile, triangular in shape, catching up aesthetically with other classical Greek coinage. But Athena's hair and, except with some of the earliest of these, the owl's feathers are rendered with less detail. Many sources indicate that Intermediate Style Owls were minted from c. 393 to 200 BC, though it's likely that their minting continued into the early second century BC. The name Pi-style refers to the floral helmet ornament on the obverses, which on the most advanced and numerous coins in the series resembles the Greek letter pi () bisected by a long central tendril. J Bingen published the first stylistic analysis of the Pi-style tetradrachms. On the pi-style reverse, the alpha is positioned below the head, its left diagonal wedged in the notch where the head meets the body, thus permitting every pi-style tetradrachm to be distinguished from earlier specimens of the same denomination instantaneously. Pi-style tetradrachms were probably struck from 353 to c. 297 BC. The chart below, from Kroll's article (Kroll Pi-Style), page 233, shows Bingen's phases of the pi-style helmet ornament. Differentiating between Bingen's pi-style types can be difficult because they are not very dissimilar and because the ornament is often partially off the flan. There are also examples that are hard to categorize even when the floral ornament is clear. Test cuts, whether innocently applied or as a mocking gesture toward the success of the Athenian financial superiority of the time, are almost always cut into the head of the owl on the reverse. More often than not, banker-marked coins will show more overall wear because of the fact that marked coins circulated far beyond the boundaries of their country-state of issue. Most such markings were the result of authentication and/or re-monetization in other countries, and received their counter-marks there, rather than close to home where they were more readily recognizable and accepted. As grades increase to nice extra fine, which is about the best grade on these with only rare exceptions, price/value really depends on several factors such as overall character, strike quality, good metal, centering of strike, whether Athena's helmet crest is fully visible (rarely the case), whether the design elements of the reverse or owl side are completely on the planchet (the E is almost always slightly off), strike splitting, toning, and so on. Two coins of the same technical grade might be thousands of dollars apart in price just based on variations in the above-mentioned factors. This is why there is such a wide range of pricing on these, although a lot of dealers are pricing everything on the high side because of the overall popularity of this series. Greek coinage, and specifically the little owl, have inspired coin designs for over 2,500 years. One of the most famous examples is the story of how President Theodore Roosevelt carried an Athens Owl Tetradrachm as a pocket piece. His love for the detailed, high relief ancient Greek coin helped him to prevail upon sculptor and fellow Greek coin enthusiast August Saint-Gaudens to design the strikingly beautiful 1907 High Relief Gold Double Eagle. Hope this helps This is my classic owl tetradrachm: Athens, Attica, ca 454-404 BC Reference: Kroll 8; SNG Copenhagen 39; and this is a Pi-Style: Athens, Attica, 353 - ca. 340 BC, late 4th or early 3rd century after 393 BC SNG Copenhagen 63; Kroll 15;
