Ed Snible

Here's one that not only depicts a fight, but looks like it has been in one:

Pamphylia, Aspendos 420-410 BC, AR Stater, 10.70g

It's a "Tekin series 1", supposedly the earliest, and seems to show one wrestler attempting to hook the back of the others' knee.

I didn't see that Dionysos example offered -- and I regularly search for coins of this city.  Yours has more detail than this example sold by Lanz in 2008:

Lycaonia, Iconium, 100 BC - 54 AD, AE16, 3.90g.
O: Beardless head of Dionysos right, crowned with ivy, thyrsos behind shoulder, within beaded border.
R: Winged gorgon, facing, two snakes above, snake ties below chin, ЄΙΚΟΝΙЄΩΝ around, within beaded border.
Ref: Lindgren & Kovacs A1376A, von Aulock Lycaonians 200
 

The pairing of Dionysos with a gorgon is surprising.  Perseus battled Dionysos in mythology but the story is not well known.  Dinarchus of Delos, writing in the 4th century BC, claimed  that Perseus killed Dionysos and buried him in a tomb at Delphi.  In the third century Euphorion, a poet, wrote that Dionysos destroyed Perseus’ city.  Pausanias claimed Dionysos fought Perseus but later made peace.  Pausanias actually saw the tomb of one of Dionysos’s intoxicated female soldiers.  Dionysos also appears on the obverse of an another coin of Iconium depicting Perseus on the reverse.

For any particular mint, go to http://nomisma.org/ and enter the mint name.  For example, Athens is http://nomisma.org/id/athens

A very early depiction of Bellerophon!

Here is one that is much later:

Portugal, uncertain year. Vasco Berardo (1933-2017). Bronze, 90mm.
Obv: Figueira da Foz / 14 Julko; Bellerophon Riding Pegasos; artist's signature to right
Rev: ESCOLA PRÁTICA DO SERVI-CO DE TRANSPORTES / ENSINAR PARA BEM SERVIR; (=Practical School of Services and Transport / Teach to Serve Well) coat of arms of the Portuguese National Republican Guard driving school. Shield with a pair of eagle wings, open book, steering wheel also of the same. Knight's helmet, Pegasus above.

Figueira da Foz is a city in Portugal. The building on the obverse is the Driving Training Center of the Portuguese Republican National Guard (GNR - Centro de Formação da Figueira da Foz). The reverse is the coat of arms of the branch of the military that ran the school.

Someone on the podcast 99% Invisible suggested last month that a 20 year sentence for buying antiquities would reduce demand for them.

https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/divining-provenance/

I have a bunch of conflicting information about these coins.  It is possibly my information is out of date.  Check out Rajuvula's Wikipedia page which is fairly detailed.

Circa 25-15 BC Silver Drachm, 2.36g, 13.6mm

This obverse lacks an inscription.  Someone told me examples with the long mustache are later.

Rajuvula was satrap to the Into-Skythians. Plant (Greek, Asiatic, Semetic p. 119) calls him Rajabula and says the obverse, Greek, inscription is "Razi, King of kings, savior". Plant writes that the reverse is Kharosthi APRaTIHaTaChaKRaSa "invincible with the discus" and ChhaTRaPaSa RaJaBULaSa "the Satrap Rajabula".

Kharosthi letters are blends. Plant writes them out in Latin letters by capitalizing the first part of each letter.  I prefer how Wikipedia does it with dashes.  For example, the name is four letters: 𐨪𐨗𐨂𐨬𐨂𐨫 Ra-ju-vu-la, Rajuvula.

The reverse shows Athena "Promachos" ("Athena who fights in the front line") standing left, brandishing thunderbolt and shield, with monogram to right; the Kharoshthi legend around Chatrapasa Apratihatachakrasa Rujuvulasa ("of Satrap Rajuvula of the Invincible Chakra") according to someone else, I forget who.

Alex Fishman used to write that Rujuvula was a Satrap of Chach, and later of Jammu, which he took from the Greeks. Later, after capturing Mathura, he assumed the title of Mahakshatrapa, which he held until his death in circa 1/10 AD.

A replica Aureus by Slavey sold this week for 1'006 EUR (hammer).

https://www.biddr.com/auctions/katz/browse?a=2570&l=2871688

The auction description noted COLLECTOR"S COPY.

I obtained the denarius version in 2001 from Old Uriah on eBay for $20.

"Victornius", modern denarius replica, 3.7g, 20.5mm
Obv: IMP C VICTORINVS PF AVG; Bust
Rev: PROVIDENTIA AVG; Medusa
cf. RIC 99

I believe the artist is Slavey Petrov, based on this ForgeryNetwork entry http://forgerynetwork.com/asset.aspx?id=Xfgwq6K3vZI= which credits him.

I guess people are finally starting to appreciate Slavey's work.  Perhaps his works will become highly collectable like those of Christodoulous.

This is probably my best junk-box find:

Nepal, 1 Paisa, “2005” (1948), Tribhuvana Bir Bikram
Obv: श्री ५ त्रिभुवन वीर विक्रम शाहदेव (Devanagari Shri Tribhuvan Veer Vikram Shahdev); २००५ (2005 which is 1948); Footprints (of medieval Hindu warrior-saint Guru Gorakhnat) above crossed Gurkha kukri daggers in a central circle
Rev: incuse of obv
Ref: Circulated BROCKAGE of KM# 707a

Although a brockage, it probably isn't worth much.  A similar one sold on eBay in 2013 for $10.50.  It is interesting to me that it circulated.  Major errors don't circulate where I live.

Close-up:

THRACE, Thasos, 411 - 404 BC. AR Tritartemorion. 8mm, 0.42 g
Obv: Head of bald and bearded satyr right
Rev: Θ/Α/Σ. Two dolphins swimming left and right, one above the other.

Selge or Aspendos, gorgoneion/Athena countermarked with another gorgoneion:

obol, 14mm, 0.88 gm.  (Possibly a contemporary imitation.)
ex Heritage, Auction #232221, May 2022, lot #64167

Photo from NGC Photo Vision.

I've seen similar countermarks on Aspendos wrestler staters and Persian sigloi.  

I’ll tell you what I’ve tried

- https://www.forumancientcoins.com/ .  Great site, good conversation.  Suffers from rules against discussing dealers and auctions.
- http://www.worldofcoins.eu/forum/ .  Good for world coins, not for ancients.
- Reddit. I am a moderator on https://www.reddit.com/r/AncientCoins/ but I rarely “moderate.”  Suffers from lack of photos.  Only the thread-starter can have a photo.
- Facebook. I am admin of OrientalNumismaticSociety-NorthAmerica there.  I don’t like Facebook because I must either share my coins with my friends and family, or post in hyper-specific collector groups of unknown membership.
- Instagram.  Suffers from lack of text. https://www.instagram.com/syossetcoin/ is a good dealer/collector to follow.  I have no interest in posting only pictures.
- Twitter.  Discussion of coins confuses my non-collector friends.
- https://zeno.ru/ Good for discussing particular Eastern ancients, but does not have general threads.
- *.blogspot.com.  I maintained http://digitalhn.blogspot.com/ for years but no one was commenting on my posts.  I was unsure if anyone was reading them.  It was hard to check everyone’s blog.
- Discord.  I keep forgetting to check … I log in and find someone talked about something I was interested in three weeks ago.
 

What browser are you using?

How are you enlarging the text in the first place?

I use Chrome on Mac.  To enlarge website text I press Command+, a shortcut for "View -> Zoom In".  This should work on all Chrome browsers, although on Windows the shortcut will be Alt+.

To upload, are you dragging files, or clicking "choose files", or something else?  Does the text size change when you start this process, or when this process completes?

Thank you for your long reply, @bgriff.  Is there a catalog of sultanate cash coins?  I have Frank Robinson's pamphlet but it only covers Palembang.  I have heard of a book by Saran Singh but I do not own it.  Or a historical guide that is better than Wikipedia but not someone's long dissertation either.

I have a number of these coins, with Javanese and Arabic inscriptions.  I don't know anyone who collects them so I have no one to ask about them.

This one troubles me because it looks better than the other examples I have seen.  Does anyone here know how to tell genuine from modern?

Java, Bantam, Pangaran Ratu, 1570-1580 AD?, 5 Pitis Cash, 31 mm
Inscription: Pangeran Ratou in Javanese / Pa-N-Ga-Ra-N Ra-Tu
Ref: Millies 112; Zeno 195540
Note that coin coin resembles Zeno 6844, which may be counterfeit. Also resembles this coin which is genuine.

Malaysia, Terengganu Sultanate, 1835-1925? 2.22g 20mm
Arabic / Jawi Kali Malik Al Adil (= The reign of the just ruler) كالي مالك العادل
Ref: Saran Singh, The Catalogue of Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei Coins (1700-1974) #33, Numista, Zeno, malay-coins.tripod.com
Extremely high grade and has a center pellet.

(I don't own the Singh catalog.)

@TuckHard thanks for breaking the inscription down for me.

My frustration with understanding Bgriff's dating on Zeno 195611 is that this coin is in the "Early Sultanate Period c. 1610-61" and he says "The king's title was Pangeran until at least 1721."  It isn't clear at all why this particular coin is to be dated "Sri Pangeran Ratu 1642-c. 1661".  Perhaps I need to read through some JONS articles?

One of my interests is getting the inscription into the computer.  I notice many numismatic sites skip non-Western inscriptions, or use them as images.  Neither Zeno nor CoinTalk allows Javanese in posts, but even sites that allow these languages don't use them.

I've gotten close to Bgriff's inscription.  I am struggling with the first part.

꧋ Wikipedia calls this "adeg-adeg (a starter)".  Does Bgriff see this on a coin, or did this get copied out of a catalog like a bullet?

ꦱꦿꦶ I don't know what this is, I've seen it used for "SRI".  Bgriff uses something that looks like a combo of ꦫꦶ "JAVANESE LETTER RA with JAVANESE VOWEL SIGN WULU" and ꦰꦶ "JAVANESE LETTER SA MAHAPRA with JAVANESE VOWEL SIGN WULU".  I can't figure out how to get that into the computer.

Next is ꦥꦔꦺꦫꦤ꧀ ꦫꦎ.  In my post above the last glyph was ꦠꦺ "JAVANESE LETTER TA with JAVANESE VOWEL SIGN TALING" but now I am using ꦎ "JAVANESE LETTER O".

32 minutes ago, TuckHard said:

Scott Semans (coincoin.com) has lent me a book covering Namo coins (what you have posted here, also Z#133598 and others) ....  many of the fake Namo coins were produced and sold during the Vietnam War era to visiting soldiers.

I haven't read Wicks' book.  In his review in JONS, Mitchener suggests "Srivijaya" (or Namo) coins should be nickel rather than silver.  I suppose I could take mine to have it XRF tested.  Do we know what, if any, the metallic composition of the genuine ones is?

I also have a few tin coins.  These are also very mysterious to me.  Here is an example.

Sumatra, Jambi (Djambi) Sultanate, tin-lead, 1.38g pitis 22mm

ex-Frank Robinson

The inscription is supposedly ꦱꦿꦶ ꦥꦔꦺꦫꦤ꧀ ꦫꦠꦺ (Sri Pangeran Ratu in Javanese, apparently a title meaning "Revered Crown Prince") but I can't figure out if I see any of those letters or not. 

Similar to Zeno 195611.  That coin is assigned to the date range 1642-1661 AD, but I can't figure out why.

As I looked over my collection to decide what I might add to this thread I noticed that @TuckHard has been discussing a coin type that puzzles me.

Sumatra, Kingdom of Srivijaya (?) c. 680-1250 (?) later series AR 1/2 unit, 1.29g, 7mm

Obv: Character "Na".  Mitchiner NISW 3058var (or 3885?)

Comparables:

• https://www.zeno.ru/showphoto.php?photo=133598 (featuring discussion last week by TuckHard)
• https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=2478908
• https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=2239896

All of these have different fabric.  TuckHard, do you think mine is real or fake?  The only provenance I have is that of a high-volume eBay seller who had a lot of very high quality South American coins.  I have nothing to tie this to Indonesia.  What do you think

@Mat, I have had several coins from eBay Lanz appear to get lost in customs according to USPS tracking.  However, in those cases the USPS sent the coins back to Lanz!  Lanz then sent them again.

No clue why this would be.  My guess is that someone fumbled the hand-written address and decided it was undeliverable, so after clearing customs it went back to Germany.

Here is a Lanz coin that disappeared completely

It's an extremely rare bronze of Iconium, gorgoneion/Nike.

At least Lanz puts their return address on the envelopes.  Some "dealers" and "auction houses" do not.  Here is a nice coin from an auction house that does not put any return address on their shipments:

This is a very scarce large (AE35) bronze of Tarsos.  It never arrived.  This dealer, who still sells via Biddr, stopped responding to my emails when I started asking him about next steps for this lost coin.

A coin from a different auction, same house, arrived in an envelope with no return address.

I no longer bid with him.  Not because I wasn't refunded for a coin whose tracking shows it vanished.  It happens.  I won't deal with anyone who doesn't put their return address on the envelopes.  It feels shady.

This may be the largest Seleukid coin:

SELEUKID EMPIRE. Antiochos IV Epiphanes. 175-164 BC. 43mm, 71.83 g. “Egyptianizing” series. Antioch on the Orontes mint. Struck 169-168 BC.
Obv: Laureate head of Zeus-Serapis right, wearing tainia with Osiris crown at tip
Rev: BAΣIΛEΩΣ ANTIOXOY ΘEOY EΠIΦANOYΣ (King Antiochos God Manifest); Eagle standing right on thunderbolt.
Refs: SC 1412; HGC 9, 642. ex-Classical Numismatic Group, e-Auction 426, August 2018, lot 221
 

The auction house described this as having "some roughness" and a "flan flaw."  The "flan flaw" looks like post-mint damage: a hole.

I won a single lot in their auction of May 25, 2021.

I wasn't invoiced until May 29th.  I immediately paid, and on June 1st received an email from FedEx with a tracking number.

The coin was not slabbed.

A fast way to find ancient cities of the Western world is http://nomisma.org/

Just put the name into the search box.

Egyptian commemoratives can be very interesting.

Egypt 1406 (1986) ١٩٨٦, 5 Pounds, Silver (.720), 17.5g, 37.1mm
Obverse: inscription, atomic symbol, two facing ancient Egyptian figures (representing Sema Towy) with the torso shown frontally but head and legs to the side.
Reverse: جمهوريه مصر العربيه (Arab Republic of Egypt.)
KM# 615, numista
Non circulating issue / Commemorative issue
mintage 5000
30th Anniversary of the (Egyptian) Atomic Energy Organization.

Sema Towy was an ancient Egyptian scene symbolizing the union of upper and lower Egypt. depicted by knotted papyrus and reed plants. The binding motif represents both harmony through linkage and domination through containment.   (Ancient Egyptian alchemy represents atomic power.)

Cairo first declared its intention to build a plant at Dabaa in 1983 under President Hosni Mubarak, and the Australian government agreed to provide uranium two years later. These plans were canceled following the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. The plant was never built.

I am having trouble seeing some of the coins you posted, @Sulla80.  Can everyone else see them?

Kyme, 250-190 BC, 1.29g, AE12
Obv: Head of the city founder, Amazon Kyme, right
Rev: Κ−Υ; one-handled cup; ΗΡΑΙΟΣ (magistrate)
Acquired August 2005

The coin is believed to picture Kyme, "presumably" a lieutenant of the Amazon queen Myrina, and founder of the city.

The people of ancient Kyme were said to be stupid. Here is an ethnic joke told in ancient Greece: A man from Kyme was trying to sell some honey. When someone came and tasted it and said that it was very good, the seller said: “Well, yes: if a mouse hadn’t fallen in it, I wouldn’t be selling it!” The citizens were believed to be very literal minded. Here is another ancient joke poking fun at Kyme: When a distinguished man was being buried in Kyme, someone came up and asked the mourners: “Who was the dead man?” One of Kymeans turned around and pointed and said: “That guy lying on the coffin platform.”

Glad to see we are considering a name.  The pricing here suggests the creator can change the name to ancientcoinchat.invisionservice.com for free.

Otherwise we will get many questions "is it prounced kay-23-2-1-3-8-7 or kay three-hundred-twenty-one-thousand-three-hundred-and-eighty-seven?"

The satyr Marsyas was a famous musician, known for playing both the double oboe.  He challenged Apollo to a contest of music and lost his hide and life.

L. Censorinus 82 BC denarius 3.80g
Obv: Laureate head of Apollo right.
Rev: L CENSOR; Marsyas standing left, holding wineskin over shoulder; to right, column surmounted by statue of Minerva (?) standing left.
Purchased from Beast Coins, June 2003

Marsyas has a weird, almost superhero-quality origin story.  The flute/oboe/aulos was invented by Athena.  Unfortunately later mirrors were invented and she saw herself playing.  Blowing into the oboe puffed up her cheeks and made her look silly ... so she threw it away and cursed it.

Marsyas finds Athena's flute.  Athena's curse is that he will die an awful death.  Marsyas becomes skilled on the flute, so skilled he challenges the god of music to a contest.  The Greeks thought this was hubris, but remember that Athena and Apollo are half-siblings.  (I suspect a set-up.)

The contest terms were that the winner could treat the defeated party any way he wanted.

The contest: Diodorus Siculus tells us that Marsyas played his flute, putting everyone there into a frenzy, and they started dancing wildly. When it was Apollo's turn, he played his lyre so beautifully that everyone was still and had tears in their eyes.  Hyginus says Marsyas actually won the first round, but then Apollo wowed the audience by playing the harp upside-down and playing the same song again.

The penalty Apollo demanded was that Marsyas be flayed (skinned).  In some versions his skin is made into a winesack, which may explain the sack Marsyas is carrying on this coin.  However when Herodotus visited Celaenae in Phyrgia (a city with no coins?), he actually saw Marsyas' skin hanging in the square.  (Which would put me off shopping).

Consider creating a forum for art medals and Renaissance medals.