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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;dougsmit, post: 1851088, member: 19463&quot;]I&#039;ll try to avoid boring with too many coins.&nbsp; A big problem with many of my coins is that they are not dated to a specific year so quite a few are split between two centuries and don&#039;t make a good representative of either time.&nbsp; Since the rules lump together the 5th century and earlier, I&#039;ll pick one that crosses into the 6th but that means I&#039;ll not post some others that are too near other borders.&nbsp; I&#039;ll also try to post a coin that I do not know others here have even if I do like it.&nbsp; I trust we will see a Syracusan silver (we already have an Athenian).&nbsp;&nbsp; So here are my favorite coins of the 5th century BC.&nbsp; All are from Greek cities located in what is now Southern Italy.&nbsp; The coins of this series I like best I don&#039;t own and probably never will.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>Dated roughly 510-480 BC neighboring cities made coins that were normal on one side and incuse on the other.&nbsp; These were not brockages but were intentionally made that way.&nbsp; The first similar coins were earlier, thinner and more fragile so I have none of the expensive&nbsp; survivors.&nbsp; About 510 BC they made them a bit thicker so they don&#039;t break as easily.&nbsp; What I do have are the most boring of the cities.&nbsp; First is Kroton.</p><p>[ATTACH=full]309270[/ATTACH]</p><p>Kroton AR stater (what Sear 256 calls &quot;smaller, more compact fabric&quot;) 7.6g</p><p>retrograde QPO at left of large tripod with stork to the right.&nbsp; This one is worn but, worse, the die was falling apart with a large chunk missing leaving a cud near the center.&nbsp; The reverse lacks the legend and&nbsp; the stork.&nbsp;&nbsp; These coins circulated in commerce and got a lot of wear.&nbsp; My back up coin is off center which shows to good effect how the die was configured outside the design.&nbsp; It falls in the same date range but probably is later than the first having forward facing legend QPOT and the elements on opposite sides from the first.&nbsp; This one is 6.28g.&nbsp; </p><p>[ATTACH=full]309271[/ATTACH] </p><p><br /></p><p>The coins might be interesting but the become more so when you take the next step.&nbsp; Why in the world would anyone issue coins like these?&nbsp; They might stack better??? The thin ones look huge for the amount of metal they contain but they did break a bit too easily, so I&#039;m told, and the later ones like my two are less impressive (which explains why I could afford them).&nbsp;&nbsp; The best theory IMHO is the link of these coins to the famous mathematician and philosopher Pythagoras.&nbsp; Pythagoras and his followers had a way of making themselves unwelcome wherever they went.&nbsp; People sometimes react less than positively to those a great deal smarter than they are.&nbsp; Pythagoras arrived in the region about the time the strange coins began.&nbsp; At his death, the coins were replaced by more normal fabric.&nbsp; Pythagoras&#039; father was a gem engraver by trade so it seems reasonable that he would consider himself an expert in such matters as die engraving.&nbsp; If you search the web, you might find some papers promoting the Pythagoreans and the coins but I&#039;ll stop short of saying that the link is 100% without question.&nbsp; I prefer to say it is likely that he had a hand in the design.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>The best coins of this fabric were from Sybaris, Poseidonia and Kaulonia.&nbsp; They had neat designs which sell today over my head.&nbsp; The other common and ordinary one is from Metapontum which used the ear of grain (barley) as its city symbol.&nbsp; They had several large denominations in spread and compat fabric but my example and my #1 favorite coin of the 6th century (or, rather the 530-480 BC range) is my 1/12? stater weighing .4g.&nbsp; You know I like tiny coins.&nbsp; </p><p>[ATTACH=full]309289[/ATTACH] </p><p>The unusual point and what makes it special to me is that the obverse design shows the whole grain ear while the incuse is just one kernel - almost lifesize.&nbsp; It looks like the coin was made by pressing a real grain into the flan.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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