JeandAcre

Thanks, @Deinomenid, for clarifying that point. Examples in gold are the last thing that ever shows up on the market. To @JAZ Numismatics's point, all I have in print is Gobl (wish I'd evolved to the level of knowing how to type an umlaut). But he notes that "the minting of gold was essentially a matter of Sasanian prestige and of paying homage to Achaemenid tradition" (p. 27, bottom). ...Maybe that partly explains what the irreducibly silly tradition of classifying Sasanian as 'Greek' was predicated on. Along comparable lines, I could go on about what I think about calling Byzantine coins 'ancient.' But that's already happened. ...But in both cases, we aren't just talking about the operant chronologies; it's about who, geopolitically, these polities were actually interacting with. Including ones that no one blinks at characterizing as 'medieval.'

Welcome, @Hoth2! People here have posted about this very subject, noting the range of ambiguities that you do. --Shout-out: you know who you are! Please, don't be shy about linking to the thread)s).

To @Sulla80's point about Claudius feeling the need to counter the belief that solar eclipses were bad omens --and since people are already giving themselves some (cool) astronomical latitude-- here's an example from the Middle Ages. The appearance of Halley's Comet, leading up to the Norman Conquest. Right, the caption can be translated, 'Here they marvel at the star.' https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2004/03/Comet_Halley_depicted_on_the_Bayeux_tapestry And, welp, here at least are Edward the Confessor and William the (recent) Conqueror. Edward ‘the Confessor,’ king of England 1042-1066. AR cut halfpenny of Lincoln or Stamford, ‘Bust Facing /Small Cross’ type, c. 1062-1065. Obv. Edward facing, crowned; cruciform arrangement of pellets on the crown extending to the upper part of the outer edge. (From 1 o’clock:) +EAD[PARD REX A –or variant]E + (‘EADWARD REX ANGLIE;’ Edward, King of England). Rev. Small cross. [(+?)L]EFPINE OI\[I (Lincoln or Stamford; numerous Old English orthographic variants)] (‘LE[O]FWINE ON (...Lincoln or Stamford);’ the moneyer Leofwine in Lincoln or Stamford.) North 830 (and pp. 184-5, ‘Kings of All England: Mints and Moneyers’), Spink 1183. Guillaume II, ‘le Batarde’ /William I, ’the Conqueror,’ Duc de Normandie 1035-1087; King of England 1066-1087. AR cut halfpenny, First Profile type (1066-1067) of Thetford, Norfolk. Obv. William facing left, crowned [holding sceptre]. [From lower left: +PILL]EM./ REXI (‘WILLEMI REXI;’ of William, the King). Rev. Floriate cross. [(EAD- /GOD-)P]IIIE ON –D[EOTFOR] (‘EADWINE /GODWINE ON THEOTFOR;’ the moneyer Eadwine or Godwine, in Thetford). North 839 (and p. 196, ‘Normans /Mints and Moneyers,’ entry for Thetford), Spink 1250. Funly, the Old English 'wynn' beginning William's name, along with the initial 'thorn' for Thetford, demonstrate the Norman reliance on the existing Anglo-Saxon minting infrastructure. The Normans were well advised; the ducal deniers were abysmal even by regional standards. The initial royal castle at Thetford eventually passed to Roger, the first Bigod earl of Norfolk (c. 1100), who built an impressive motte.

Wow. Huge thanks, @Phil Anthos and @expat, for an equally dramatic and mutually enlightening contrast!!! Phil Swift and the Sealers (never heard of 'em) have to evoke Spinal Tap. --Nope, had to upgrade my imogee from a smile to a laugh after that. @Phil Anthos, is it a safe guess that this is in fact Bauhaus? Wow. Fearless, only more so on an artistic level than for the content. ...I never heard more than random bits of them, but I did eventually acquire an appreciation of Joy Division, as a band who sort of took the Pistols and the Clash to a different level. ...Fun to compare the longevity of Punk to that of Hip-Hop, each with their myriad permutations.

@Sol_Invictus, with regret, I couldn't even make sense of the Frankish imitation I was starting (instant edit:) with. But it easily registers that, even in the intervening three centuries, the Kufic alphabet wouldn't have changed that dramatically. ...Except on coins, rather than friendlier media, like manuscripts. And, right, even regarding the location of dates and mints, the operant Ayyubid prototypes would have have had a completely different scheme from any of the early caliphates. ...Thank you, knowing that (another edit: sorry, the familiarly royal) one has that much to learn helps that much to get me up in the morning! Having recently retired, I'm promising you, that's profoundly useful information.

Henry III (1216-1272). Cut halfpenny; second, voided cross type. North class 3b, c. 1248-1250. Obv. Henry crowned, facing. *h[ENRICVS] REX III. Rev. [/]ION [ON / CAR/]LEL. (Moneyer Jon on Carlisle.) North 987 (for type); p. 286 (for mint and moneyer); cf. Plate 20: 17. --Yes, even for this issue, this is a relatively scarce mint. I Really Need how the two extant parts of the reverse include enough legend to identify both the mint and the moneyer. From its strategic location on the western, Cumbrian border with Scotland, Carlisle Castle saw plenty of action from the early 12th century, all the way up to, Crikey, the second major Jacobite revolt; Bonnie Prince Charlie, and all that. Sheer craziness, since the the castle's design and fabric never advanced far beyond the original tower keep and plain curtain wall, going back to (an obviously prescient) Henry I. Cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlisle_Castle; https://www.gatehouse-gazetteer.info/English sites/368.html.) https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/carlisle-castle/ This site funly notes that, along with lots of masonry castles in Scotland, it was built largely of sandstone. A great example of a castle built from locally sourced sandstone is Carlisle Castle in England. Occupying a 4 acre piece of land, the castle is mostly constructed of grey and red sandstone, and its initial construction began in the 12th century. It is believed that the Romans initially quarried the Sandstone in the local area, but evidence of it has since been destroyed in the wake of massive removal for building since the Medieval period. Sandstone is light, and easier to transport, yet durable enough for construction. https://southbaylapidaryandmineralsociety.com/2016/08/12/british-castles-how-were-they-made-and-what-were-they-made-of/ Right, all of this was really an elaborate pretext for some more Hendrix. From one of my favorite albums; as such, the earliest one.

Yowie. Huge thanks for these links! I've never seen copies as cheap as on ABE Books. Byzantine (mainly from Comnenan) is sorta kinda on the peripheries of my collecting, but it would be cool to pick up some relative fluency in the whole series.

Yes, Huge thanks, especially for the Zeno link! Looking forward to starting with the Frankish imitative dirham, which the grad student who sold it dated to 1218 CE. ...This is Great! Thanks again!

...Well, it's like this. For medievals, my center of gravity is c. 10th -13th centuries. Starting from there, this entire interval isn't just novel; it's inexhaustibly exotic. Given which, what can't fail to make a lasting impression is the erudition of @Vel Saties, @Tejas, and (instant edit:) @Rand in explicating and commenting on the already amazing progress that field archaeology has made in compensating for the paucity of primary documentation. (Thank you, familiar from later contexts, but, if anything, only more marked in this one.)

Well, Rats. From a free account, I couldn't find it. ...Right, Metcalf and Malloy both note the posthumous AMALRIC issues, terminating in the 1220's. But they're relatively vague about the operant details; running to lower weights and corresponding modules. I need the posthumous ones especially for their contemporaneity to the tenure of Jean de Brienne (père) as King of Acre. Generally, the earlier 13th century is the phase of the Crusades I hang out in most, and Jean is one of my favorite antiheroes of the same era (along with his later contemporary, Pierre 'Mauclerc' of Dreux and Brittany). Variously by marriage, exile, and election, he went from Acre to a papal war in Italy to Latin Constantinope (as regent of his son-in-law).

May I 'fourth' @voulgaroktonou, @ela126, and @Simon's equally eloquent and perceptive points? Ultimately, it's easy enough to see the historical significance as an integral component of the esthetic appeal. Even with Classical coins --and collectors-- I have to suspect that an overly reductionistic dichotomy is speciously stereotypical of how people relate to the coins in real time.

Thanks! I'll try looking for it on academia.edu ...just in case.

@CPK, feeling your pain. It's been decades since I was at one. Even the ones in my home town(s) were memorable. (instant edit:) @JAZ Numismatics, very best with how it goes.

@voulgaroktonou, over the past couple of years, several people on the forum have talked about this eloquently. But when you're talking about medieval, Byzantine, or even Classical coins, why on earth do the historical contexts have to take such a back seat (almost feels as if it's on the bus, never mind in the car) to the esthetics? I mean, if you need the esthetics That Badly, absent any other, no less relevant criterion, why not just collect St.-Gaudens double eagles? ...I tried to find the operant thread, with the usual luck I have searching this site. But for more than one of us, the historical significance is actually the primary criterion of the two. Cf. @panzerman's new post in his most recent thread about medievals.

@seth77, is there a link, or anything else, on the Israeli research on the AMALRICVS deniers? Compared to those, the coverage of the Bohemond issues is relatively extensive (granted, less than comprehensive), even in Malloy and Metcalf.

...Too true, @Kali (from farther north), but for the east coast, 4.8 has to be pretty, well, impressive.

Thanks, @Simon. It's only 15 mm, but at 4 grams and change, it's a pretty substantial 15 mm. The kind of thing someone like yours truly can be glad he got one representative example of.

You nailed it, @Phil Anthos. With Tom Waits, you show up for the weirdness, and stay for the poignancy.

Thanks back at you, John. I'm repeating myself, but it's worth it in this context. Over the 11th -13th centuries (earlier or later depending on the location), the whole northern Mediterranean, facing the Islamic world, was more cosmopolitan than the medieval stereotype would lead anyone to believe. But Norman --and, thank you, Staufen-- Sicily really takes the prize.

For mere esthetics, this is the best Byzantine Anything I have. ...Oh, No, cribbing it directly from this forum! (Well, with the little I could do in the way of transliteration.) Here's my very first AE tessera, just won from Naumann. The description is mostly cribbed from the auction page. ...And, Golly, I can still transliterate! Who knew? BYZANTINE AE TESSERA(?). Stephan Spatharios, Mystolektes (a subsidiary administrative post), c. 11th-12th c. (I mostly hang out in the Comnenan -Latin periods. The style strikes me as pretty emphatically Comnenan.) Obv: O A ΓЄωPΓIOC. (...Georgios.) Facing bust of St. George, nimbate, holding spear and shield. Rev: + KЄRO CTЄΦAN ACΠAΘAP S MVCTO ΛЄKTH. (...Stephan ...Mystolecte) Edited July 4, 2022 by JeandAcre

And now it's time for a rollicking adventure in the wild frontier of wholesale regression. (At this level, "midlife" becomes a convenient euphemism.) The video features clips going back a few years before the track itself, from the Japanese movies that were standard fare for kids in the neighborhood who had cable tv. Yikes. First, though, the coin. (Welf) Duchy of Bavaria. Heinrich X, 'the Proud,' 1126-1138. Denar /pfennig of Regensberg. (Dealer's pics.) Rev. Warrior with nasal helmet, Norman-style, 'kite-shaped' shield and sword fighting a dragon, to left. Obv. Duke standing facing, with banner and shield. Cf. this article (waaaay down; the pages are unnumbered; you'd have to really trawl for it): https://www.academia.edu/24323600/Medieval_Coins_of_Bavaria (Citing Emmerig 71.) Now for the Real Sh-t.

Another good reason to give the whole culture of slabbing the respect it deserves.

...Well. never mind, @panzerman, here's a link to the post that says everything I would have repeated. While my favorite of the coins on that post has to be the tari of Robert 'Guiscard' (often translated 'the Weasel'), another one has to be the concave follaro of William I (1154-1166), combining Latin, Arabic and Byzantine Greek elements, variously in the legends and reverse motif (evoking early ikony, already echoed on Byzantine coins, but freely adapted on German ones back to the Salian dynasty in the 11th century). What's very cool is how, as you note, this multi-cultural ethos was continued as late as Friedrich II, whose mom was the heiress of Norman Sicily (Woops, Edit), where he grew up. Elsewhere in Europe, people said all kinds of things about him, from 'stupor mundi' (a little ambiguous to begin with) to stuff that was less complimentary as itwent along. To all of which, I can only say is, Fine, except, Oh Well. None of us does any better than any of us we can do with the spiritual resources to which we are given access. Thank you, in real time. ...I have to know that this is already scaring people; it Has to be time to shut up.

@panzerman, I've seen Sicilian coins with AH and AD dates, but Never on the same coin! That's Wild. I can post some, but have a doctor's appointment to get to first. Hold me to it!

And, Oh No, I already have to do this. A denier from the south of a different country (...wait for it:) Marquisat de Provence. Raymond V (also comte de Toulouse), 1148-1194. Obv. Crescent and star; 'R. COMES.' Rev. 'Cross of Toulouse.' D / V / X / M [ARCHIE? ...Maybe emphasizing Raymond's military role ('dux') on an eastern border (march / marquisat) of France. That's just a guess.] Duplessy 1604. And this has to be my favorite J. J. Cale tune. --Busted; that many of them are that good. Fine, except, make me pick one, and this will be it.