JeandAcre

Michelin Three Stars example of an Amazing issue (utterly unknown to me, until this minute). Kind of incredible how a Republican as could have this much historical detail going on, both in the legend and the motifs. And, @Charles H, a belated welcome to the forum! I only hang out in the Ancient threads ...well, to be honest, when not much else is happening. But how can you regret a chance to broaden your horizons --especially when it's as Ciceronianly entertaining as this? Thanks! (Near-instant edit: Whoops, that's 'Horatian,' not 'Cicernian.')

@Ursus, I've never ventured into these later, ecclesiastical Swiss bracteates, but have always found them esthetically compelling. (Including the ones with the profiles.) This one is magnificent; a worthy example of a particularly iconic design.

This is my example, also from Pars. ...I've never learned how to read the Parsi; had lots of coaching.

Ouch, I already needed this. Van Morrison is from and of Ulster. This is the example of James II's 'gun money' that I wound up with. (One that I posted earlier was sold; the dealer, coolness incarnate, summarily gave me a full refund. Why people with more common sense wait to post things that haven't arrived.) The full 1689 date is clearer in hand. And the Van Morrison.

I wish it was recently enough to remember the details, but either in this or (likelier?) the older forum, someone (I don't think this was @TheTrachyEnjoyer; apologies if it was you!) talked about how anonymous folles functioned, even in the Byzantine equivalent of pockets, as miniature ikons. This guy was a practicing Greek Orthodox, and deeply invested and informed in Byzantine generally. ...Thank you, with that kind of context, the transition to amulets couldn't be more intuitive. @voulgaroktonou, I have to think you nailed it.

...And, Rats, I don't have pics of anything, but what about Nabataea? (Thanks especially to @Sulla80, with his example of Elymais, for jogging my memory.)

@Coinmaster, your hypothesis makes immediate intuitive sense. I only have the broadest handle on the late persecutions, but the impression I got was that for the members of the Tetrarchy, the religious issues themselves were at the top of the agenda. Maybe in contrast to the emperors of the earlier centuries, whose emphasis was more on the ultimately political dynamics around veneration of the emperor himself. But really, this is speculation, based on acquaintance with the context which, compared to lots of people here, is decidedly fragmentary.

...Oh, No, but, without adult supervision, I need some more very vintage Gustav Leonhard playing French stuff. This time only more Galant than Baroque. You could call it 'proto-Classical,' if you had to, but it's really just a French thing. Integral to the musical sensibility going back to early contemporaries of Bach. Right, a coin. Gots me one. Vicomté de Châteaudun. Anonymous obole, c. 1120-1130. Obv. The bléso-chartrain profile which these issues perpetuated from the mid-10th to earlier 13th centuries. With endless variations, allowing approximate dating in convergence with hoard evidence. Here, a crosslet and 'S' are in the fields, with an annulet for the eye, and a vertical omega for the mouth. Rev. Cross; annulet and 'S' in angles. +DVNI CS:ASTI-I-I-. ('DVNI CAST[E]LLI;' 'S's inverted.) Duplessy 474. The issue corresponds to the vicecomital reign of Geoffroy III (fl. c. 1110- c. 1145/50). Geoffroy is among the better documented, correspondingly colorful of the early viscounts. In 1136, he was briefly “imprisoned by his cousin Lord Urso at his castle at Fréteval;” it took the intervention of his wife, Helvisa, with help from his son and neighboring allies, to secure his release. (Livingstone, Out of Love for My Kin (Cornell, 2020), 76-7.) It wasn't the only time Helvisa had to bail him out. Later, "near death," he was excommucated for usurping property from a neighboring abbey. Helvisa promised the abbey full restoration (197). To Geoffroy’s credit, his “affection for Helvisa is evident in several charters where he refers to her as his ‘venerable wife,’” and the preponderance of her cosignature “suggest[s] that they spent a great deal of time in each other’s company” (198). ...Right, so here's some Duphly, from his second livre, 1748.

Huge thanks, @DonnaML. With apologies for taking so long to wander back to this thread. Anecdotally, I know as much as that for French feudal, articles that are as current as you're likely to find (without the academic library From the Hand of God) routinely cite ones that go back this far. Right, the main caveat is available hoard evidence, not methodology. (Instant edit:) Although a lot of these are still mid-19th to earlier 20th century, there Are exceptions! Thanks again.

@seth77, Huge (belated, from this thread) Thanks for sending the .pdf! As noted in the message thread, it's got 'permanent reference' near-literally written all over it.

Thanks, @seth77 --and @kirispupis-- for posting examples of this very coolly arcane issue. @seth77, since you're already emphasizing the multicultural element, am I right in recalling that earlier Phoenician issues, along the lines of Tyre, c. last half-millennium BCE, are also dated, also from the local calendar? It would be cool if, along with the other dynamics, Orthosia was perpetuating that.

@DonnaML, I took longer than you did stumbling onto the Exonumia forum --not to mention this thread! Your Abolitionist Conder is brilliant. Hard to imagine that for the type, let alone the series, it's less than exceptional. Mine was bought too long ago even to have dealer's pics. But it's much more worn than your example; no one's missing a whole lot. Except that, while it has the same cool legend around the rim, it's also the variant that renders 'OPPRESSION' with one 'P'. ...So, sadly enough, the best I can do is by way of what's already a repost, even though it's still a recent acquisition. As such, a welcome upgrade to one that's only more worn than my Abolitionist one. --Yes, with another cool rim inscription: 'BIRMINGHAM W, HAMPTON > OR LITCHFIELD (the protagonist's home town). Right, for anyone who's seen the intial post, this will be reiterative. ...So why not just launch right into it. Especially in his later career, as documented in Boswell's Life, Samuel Johnson was an already prescient, reflexive abolitionist. Relative to the younger, conventionally Whig Boswell, the irony is that Johnson's Toryism was already rapidly fading from fashion. But it provided the political context for his antipathy to mercantilism and every form of colonial (and, by easy transition, post-colonial) exploitation. As early as 1770, leading up to the American Revolution, his pamphlet, Taxation No Tyranny (a concept which has hardly lost relevance), he wrote: We are told, that the subjection of Americans may tend to the diminution of our own liberties; an event, which none but very perspicacious politicians are able to foresee. If slavery be thus fatally contagious, how is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes? https://www.samueljohnson.com/tnt.html Then there gets to be this, from the Oxford 1-volume edition of the Life (p. 946, under Wednesday, 15 April 1778). From this pleasing subject, he, I know not how or why, made a sudden transition to one upon which he was a violent aggressor; for he said, ‘I am willing to love all mankind, except an American:’ and his inflammable corruption bursting into horrid fire, he ‘breathed out threatenings and slaughter;’ calling them, ‘Rascals — Robbers — Pirates;’ and exclaiming, he’d ‘burn and destroy them.’ Miss Seward, looking to him with mild but steady astonishment, said, ‘Sir, this is an instance that we are always most violent against those whom we have injured.’ — He was irritated still more by this delicate and keen reproach; and roared out another tremendous volley, which one might fancy could be heard across the Atlantick. During this tempest I sat in great uneasiness, lamenting his heat of temper; till, by degrees, I diverted his attention to other topicks. Right, he was always ready --if not, sometimes, hard-wired-- to let his often (as here) valid moral objections morph into this level of antipathy. At the same time, apart from the presence of refined feminine company in the room, it's hard for me not to read Boswell's rhetorical window-dressing ('violent aggressor' --really?) partly in terms of his own highly selective set of sensibilities. Meanwhile, climbing down from all of that, your Pidcock's elephant and cockatoo, and Covenry Lady Godiva ...with Another elephant, are both stunning. As are the rest of the ones folks have posted so far. ...But, Yeah, I've looked at online examples of both of those. Since you folks have 'em, maybe it gets to be good enough if I don't.

@Hoth2, after half a decade (starting with later antoniniani and LRBs), I can give that a hearty second! Having concentrated in medieval for most of that time, I used to blithely assume that, by contrast, 'mainstream' ancients were more comprehensively documented. ...Not So Fast!

With apologies, @Simon, I'm still not over the provenance. 'By Appointment to Her Majesty the Queen /Medallists.' ...Yikes. I'm curious about how old the ticket is.

@Valentinian, Congratulations! Those first two are real stunners. I, for one, had never seen examples that have this level of stylistic consonance with coins of the Tetrarchy. Nothing you couldn't expect to happen, but still a real gestalt if you've never seen an example. My first reflex for the second one was, 'are you sure that isn't Constantius Chlorus?' ...Wow. Very enlightening. Thanks!

@Hoth2, Cool! Enjoying the anticipation. ...And to a former point you made, multiple threads on anything can't fail to widen the context, at the very least. Never mind on a subject as relatively arcane as this!

An impressive ensemble, @I_v_a_n, and it definitely has its own charm. But regarding style (to wallow in the obvious), what else would you expect from a bunch of iconoclasts?

Here’s one that hasn’t even been posted for a minute. Comte de Tonnerre. Denier. According to Poey d’Avant, an early comital issue, c. late 10th -11th centuries. The reverse evokes issues of the neighboring county of Auxerre. (Both bordering Champagne and the duchy of Burgundy.) Obv. +TORNODORI CASTI. Rev. Cross; in the angles, four seven-pointed stars. No legend. Boudeau 1726 (variant: ‘CAST’); Poey d’Avant, 5855 (this precise legend); Plate CXXXV, No. 18. And some from the first reading I ever heard of Rameau's relatively late chamber work, Pièces de Clavecin en Concerts. C. 1971; Directed by Gustav Leonhardt from a neo-Flemish harpsichord. (Minus the tonal diversity of French ones; guessing that was for the relative precision.) Each of the other three musicians, probably all students of Leonhardt, went on to direct their own Baroque ensembles.

@John Conduitt, thank you! In this instance, that was my good fortune. (Instant edit:) now that I'm newly retired, I wouldn't dare to go looking for anything comparable. That one was cheap in the first place.

@John Conduitt, it took a minute to find the pics, but here's my clipped, sole representative, correspondingly prized siliqua of Honorius, also of Milan.

Yike, @ela126, that's a Very close match to the last one in my post. ...Right, with minor variants, but during this phase, that's effectively the default mode. Nowhere near enough of this is published in the first place.

Brilliant stuff, @John Conduitt. An Offa Anything? Just, never mind. I have to love how the name just leaps out at you, as if it was a neon sign. The sceatta is absolutely brilliant. The one representative example I gave myself permission to buy was this one, with the same combination of radiate crown and 4th-c. standard. Not least for this period, I need the distinctive combination of economic dynamics that were in play. Yes, the mercantile classes were a miniscule socio-economic elite. Given which, trade, especially by maritime routes, was faster, more efficient, and more routine than it's often given credit for. Stuff could really Jump. ...I wish it was easier to find (not bookmarked; Slap Both Hands), but there was an absolutely brilliant documentary (BBC or, I doubt it, PBS) on excavations around Tintagel Castle, establishing that, vaguely during the Arthurian period, there was a polity there that was effectively in constant contact with the Mediterranean, including Byzantines. My uncle (a.k.a. Dad's Smarter Younger Brother), who was a professor of physical anthropology, liked to emphasize this same point, in the context of First Nations across North America --thank you, even by overland routes (including, thank you again, rivers, including upstream routes.) Moral: We don't get to underestimate these people's intelligence. Just for one, they didn't spend hours parked in front of the tv.

Huge thanks for the head's up and the link, @Romismatist!!! You could bet money you didn't have that it was summarily bookmarked. Regarding the transition to Melle from Byzantine sources (for those tuning in late, no, you Really Have to see the webpage), there are these. As you might expect, Melle was one of the commonest mints for Carolingian issues, which (ditto) were immobilized into the 12th century. William IX, Duke of Aquitaine (grandfather of the eponymous Eleanor) continued the trend, specifically for the ones of Charles III, with the mint featured very prominently on the reverse. Charles II (King of West Francia 840-877; Emperor from 875.) Denier of Melle, c. 840-864. Funly, my only Carolingian with Viking 'peck marks.' Obv. +CARLVS REX. Rev. 'CAR<>LVS' monogram; +METxVLLO. Depeyrot (3rd ed., 2008), 627 (very minor variant; 'x' instead of '+' in the mint signature). Charles III (898-922). Initiating the 'MET ALO' legend in two lines. Depeyrot 629; cf. 630. Immobilization perpetuating the type of Charles III. As such, on the grounds of style and module, likely as early as William IX (Duke of Aquitaine 1086-1127), although Duplessy doesn't list a variant with only one central pellet on the reverse. Cf. Duplessy 906-910.

Fantastic job on an amazing amulet, @Didier Attaix. Hats Off!!!! ...You've inspired me to go trawling again for my first representative scarab.

Thanks for the enlightening expansion of the full range involved, @panzerman. By comparison with Sasanian, even lumping the earlier ones, down to Parthia, makes relative sense.... But, yeah, auction houses should just come clean and expand their categories. ...Could it be a selling point, by way of getting the attention of people who go straight to Greek?