velarfricative

They sure are selling a lot of coin cabinets this sale, 58 lots and quite a few look very expensive.

On 4/8/2024 at 8:04 PM, Finn235 said:

based on whether they use Greek or another language

I don't think that's how they divide it, CNG puts the coinage of Persis in Oriental Greek and their issues don't use Greek. Indo-Scythian and Kushan coinage use Greek, but those are always in Central Asian.

Another coin of Apollodotos I, a rare early circular Attic hemidrachm.

6 hours ago, Cordoba said:

More recently, a hoard of baktrians popped up around 2019. plato tetradrachms, while still very rare, have came to auction much more often than it did before 2019. 

The "EXTREMELY RARE AND IMPOSSIBLE TO FIND" descriptor that every auction house adds to Plato tetradrachms gets less true by the year. It seems to me that the consignor has been smart, and is sending them one at a time to many different auction houses.

The mysterious last-second bidder who shows up to push you to your max at Leu is a well-known phenomenon. He certainly seems to have an uncanny ability to nearly always bid an increment or two below the max, but never to win a coin.

6 hours ago, Deinomenid said:

I am/get a little surprised when they sell large  numbers  of practically "identical" coins. There must be a strategy behind it I suppose,  but it's not one  I  understand. Eg 6 (!) dekadrachms of Syracuse. I know they aren't particularly  rare but auction  houses  like to pretend they are to get the  6 digits they can often sell for. Or selling three 100 litra gold coins of Dionysios I one after another. 

If I were the seller I'd be concerned.  Which I'm  not so I suppose I should be quiet!

 

Well, there's only one Triton a year; the consignors probably prefer to sell the coins now rather than wait a year or list in a lesser feature auction.

13 hours ago, kirispupis said:

If the coin is common, I've had success just going back to previous auctions to see what the type goes for

I would strongly recommend looking at price histories before bidding on any coin anywhere, blindly bidding will result in a very sad day when you eventually consign

We need a multiple dirham here! This one is from Mansur b. Nuh, Kurah Badakshan mint.

Another Menander, this one with Athena on the reverse as well as the obverse.

On 9/9/2023 at 8:09 PM, John Conduitt said:

I find it hard enough to interpret Sasanian mintmarks without challenging theories!

But it’s an interesting idea. It’s not as if there weren’t lots of people copying them, so why not. I also agree it would be odd to add the denomination, as familiarity was why they chose to copy Sasanian coins. I don’t know if anyone (apart from the Chinese) added the denomination until 1000 years later, because coins were meant to be worth their weight in silver and it didn’t matter what was written on them.

It's quite standard on Islamic coinage to mention the denomination, for gold, silver, and bronze, beginning with the early post-reform period.

22 minutes ago, Sulla80 said:

Indo-Parthians, Gondopharid Dynasty, Gondophares, circa 40-5 BC, drachm (Bronze, 11 mm, 2.37g), uncertain mint in the area of Pathankot

If we're posting Indo-Parthian Pathankot drachms here, here's...

a Gondophares drachm,

an Abdagases drachm

and two Gondophares-Sases drachms.

It is probably Rida, only a small number of governors (Imad, Rida, Tamish, and Udayy) have their name in ObQ3; https://www.zeno.ru/showgallery.php?cat=6452

An update on this from April, which I've only just noticed now: https://www-uniforum-uio-no.translate.goog/nyheter/2023/04/mynter-fra-nasjonalmuseet-i-kabul-forsokt-auksjone.html?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp

Translated from the original Norwegian; sounds like they're currently in the University of Oslo Museum of Cultural History.

And, a new photo, from the article:

1 minute ago, Salomons Cat said:

It doesn't seem fair to me that people try using this phrase against them.

Auction houses should not be held responsible for the way they themselves describe their coins?

Original Heliokles tetradrachm, the last ruler before the nomads took over:

Yuezhi imitation, either by Kujula Kadphises or someone a bit earlier than him:

I think, but am not certain, that this is an example of the Sri Narendra type. At the very least, the legend seems different from the normal Pratapaditya type.

And also, here's a Mihirakula issue.

In the year or so since this post, I actually have managed to get some silver.

A drachm (2.80g) of Pakores, and

a much smaller drachm (1.57g) of Sases, citing "Aspabharata" on the reverse.

On 7/30/2023 at 10:08 PM, Finn235 said:

"Vajara Vasudeva" a Turk warlord, loosely based on Ardashir III

These are now attributed to a king named Sandan, with the former name "Vakhudeva" more properly translated as "Lord of the Oxus". Vondrovec gives the full readings (following Sims-Williams) of the legends on the obverse as "sri candana vakhudevah", "His Perfection Candana, Lord of the Oxus" and "σρι βαγο αζροβδδιγο σανδανο βαγο χοαδηο", "His Perfection, the Lord, the Chiliarch Sandano, His Perfection, the Lord"

The sale seems to be primarily coins getting flipped from previous Roma sales, or from other sales within the last year or so. Nearly everything I've looked at has a very recent provenance, except for stuff that's obviously from hoards.

The Kushans were not Indo-Greek, but rather from Central Asia. Here is an issue of Kanishka III:

Here's a couple scarcer types:

Menander I, Indo-Greek

Diomedes, Indo-Greek

Maues, Indo-Scythian

Bottom row third from right is an Indo-Parthian tetradrachm, possibly Abdagases; second from right is a Mujatria tetradrachm.

4 minutes ago, Pellinore said:

And then there are the many early imitations that were issued in the years after the conquest of the Sasanian Empire by the Arabs in the middle 7th century. The copper coins were local issues, like this very unround one. 

 

AE pashiz, c.660-700. No place, no date. Obv. Sasanian portrait. Rev. Fire altar with bystanders. 14 mm. 0.79 gr. Album-49K, Gyselen-124. (Gyselen is the detailed catalog.)

I was unaware of any Arab-Sasanian coins like this one, how was this determined to be an Arab issue and not just normal Sasanian?

My own Buddha coins:

Tetradrachm (Shakyamuni Buddha)

Drachm (Shakyamuni Buddha)

Tetradrachm (Maitreya Buddha)

1 hour ago, Tetradogma said:

Given that pretty much every E-Sale Roma did would usually have about 60 of these coins in,

I mean, not just Roma E-Sales, those owls hit every major auction house for years (and continue to do so, I presume)