DLTcoins

They want to prevent the forgers from using sensitive information in the Bulletin to their advantage. Unfortunately, the same information that helps dealers and collectors identify forgeries can also help forgers better evade detection.

I totally understand. I've used the same long-discontinued photo editing program for the last 20 years. It originally came bundled with an XP laptop. It's still compatible with Windows and does everything I need it to do, requiring little or no conscious thought. 🙂

The article is poorly worded, I think. As I read it, coins dating from 660-820 were tested. Coins dating after 750 matched the isotope signature of silver produced from the mine at Melle. The pre-750 coins, however, matched the isotope signatures of silver objects (not necessarily coins) known to have been produced in the "Byzantine Empire" (i.e. Eastern Mediterranean) from the 3rd through 7th centuries. This earlier silver does not match any known "European" source, the article says, and shares "no meaningful overlap with late Western Roman silver coins". The upshot seems to be that when trade blossomed in Western Europe in the mid-7th century with silver replacing gold as the primary coinage metal, prestige (church?) objects originating in the Eastern Mediterranean were sacrificed to provide the necessary silver for nearly a century, after which the mine at Melle became the dominant source. Fascinating stuff!

Not Sasanid but Islamic: 'Abbasid governors of Tabaristan, Sa'id (ibn Da'laj), c. 776-778, AR hemidrachm (or 'Tabari' drachm), Tabaristan mint, dated year 125 of the post-Yazdegard era. Album 58. This series represents a late continuation of the Arab-Sasanian coinage. The Arabs initially had no coinage of their own but following the conquests of Syria and Persia, imitated the existing Byzantine and Sasanian types until the end of the 7th century, when a purely Islamic coinage was introduced. In Tabaristan and a couple of other regions the imitative coinage lasted a bit longer. On your coin, the governor's name Sa'id (سعيد) in Arabic is to the right of the bust. The other legends are in Pahlavi (Persian) script. As suggested above, a shortcut to reading the dates is to simply match stroke-by-stroke with known examples (I used volume 1 of the Ashmolean Sylloge). Fortunately for us, Sa'id ruled only a few years!

Déjà vu: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/feb/01/treasure-trove-galleon-returned-spain

The most interesting thing is that it's such an exact copy of the prototype. The legends, to the extent they are visible, are reproduced perfectly.

Based on Rabino ('Coins of the Jala'ir...', Num Chron 1950), BMC Oriental VI 'Mongols', and Zeno, the inscription in the 5 vanes should be (from top, the missing vane in parenthesis): في دولة (السلطان) الاعظم جلال الدين حسين خان and at center: خلد ملكه (fi dawla / al-sultan / al-a'zam / Jalal al-Din / Husayn khan // khallad mulkahu) With some imagination I can convince myself that it fits but it's screwy (technical term of art 🙂). An imitation? I don't see a mint name or a date anywhere. There is no way, I suppose, to know the Zeno poster's level of expertise. We can only take it at face value. There is an example of the smaller single dinar at Zeno with clear inscriptions, including the mint name Hamadan written between lines of the Kalima. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ https://www.zeno.ru/showphoto.php?photo=78353

Here is your coin. Not only the same type and mint but apparently the same die pair! Credit to @John Conduitt for suggesting Jalayrids. https://www.zeno.ru/showphoto.php?photo=83055

I guess I drew the wrong conclusion from your original post: "I got an e-mail from Customs Friday asking me to provide proof of payment, the invoice and why such an item was shipped by registered post."

It sounds like registered mail for an inexpensive item was a red flag. They must have suspected the value was under-reported.

Numismatically, Kufic refers to a range of calligraphic styles used on Islamic coins, generally earlier, squarish, and often lacking diacritical marks that distinguish letters that are otherwise of similar form. Numismatically, again, Kufic is perhaps best understood in contrast to Naskh script which is later, rounder and more cursive, typically with full diacritical marks. Arabic calligraphers would divide what I have described here as Kufic and Naskh into a number of idiosyncratic scripts based on fine points of style. The numismatic distinction is at a very basic level (thank goodness). That said, the inscription on this coin is what I would describe as a semi-literate attempt at Kufic, difficult to make sense of but not unusual for this reign. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kufic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naskh_(script)

Many (most?) of the early Indo-something silver coins in the marketplace over the last 30 years have come from the Mir Zakah hoard, hundreds of thousands of coins found in a well in Afghanistan, often porous from leaching over the centuries.

Two great nations divided by a common language. 😉

Since this idea of "crystallized counterfeits" is based on subjective observation of the surface only, I wonder if something is possibly being misinterpreted. For example, might a surface craquelure resembling crystallization be an unintended artifact of the casting process and not evidence of actual internal crystallization and embrittlement? Only in the case of a broken coin revealing the diagnostic chalky interior would I say that crystallization demonstrates authenticity.

Actually, isn't νικα an imperative verb (second person singular), giving the meaning "In this, win!", thus the Latin equivalent vinces. Interestingly, it isn't clear to me whether Constantine is supposed to have actually seen the words in Greek (ἐν τούτῳ νίκα) or whether Eusebius simply recorded them in Greek because he was writing in Greek. Most of us are more familiar familiar with the Latin version (in hoc signo vinces) but which came first, the chicken or the egg?