velarfricative

There were around 30 different Indo-Greek rulers, but all but the most dedicated collectors will be unlikely to own coins from more than a dozen of them or so. You're most likely to run into Antimachos II, Apollodotos I, Menander I, Strato I, Zoilos I, Lysias, Antialkidas, Heliokles II, Philoxenos, Archebios, Hermaios, Apollodotos II, and Zoilos II.

A couple of my own coins from a rarer king: Archebios. ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΔΙΚΑΙΟΥ ΝΙΚΗΦΟΡΟΥ ΑΡΧΕΒΙΟΥ / (maharajasa dhramikasa jayadharasa arkhebiyasa) 𐨨𐨱𐨪𐨗𐨯 𐨢𐨿𐨪𐨨𐨁𐨐𐨯 𐨗𐨩𐨢𐨪𐨯 𐨀𐨪𐨿𐨑𐨦𐨁𐨩𐨯

Close; the Kharosthi for the first should be 𐨨𐨱𐨪𐨗𐨯 𐨪𐨗𐨪𐨗𐨯 𐨨𐨱𐨟𐨯 𐨀𐨩𐨯 and for the second should be 𐨨𐨱𐨪𐨗𐨯 𐨪𐨗𐨪𐨗𐨯 𐨨𐨱𐨟𐨯 𐨀𐨩𐨁𐨫𐨁𐨮𐨯

Your coin is actually an Indo-Scythian issue imitating Hermaios' coinage; later ones such as this have some quite unusual portraits.

Very nice Vima Takto! It was not Vima Takto, but his son, Vima Kadphises, who used Greek and Kharosthi on his main issues. Vima Takto had subsidiary mints that did make use of Kharosthi and Greek, however. Following the Vimas, all Kushan coins are monolingual, first in Greek and then in Bactrian for the remainder of their empire.

Tangentially, since hopefully this thread has visibility, here is a dangerous forgery I would like to kill: a die-struck forgery of Vima Kadphises made with transfer dies. Attached is also an example of where the dies of the mother coin cut off. Sold at many auction houses; not Roma, though! Good job keeping it out.

Hunnic tribes are a worthy area to get into; I don't mean to be prickly about Baktrian coins, and Roma is generally quite good (I saw some very nice Hunnic coins in the last sale, in fact, that were quite fantastic). It just gets frustrating seeing a lack of attention in the area (not necessarily referring to you, just among numismatists in general). By and large Roma does a fine job, certainly far above the average for how Baktrian is handled.

I appreciate the snide remarks, but I don't think I will. My only hope is to make sure that forgeries can be kept out of Baktria; the current state of the field is such that widely-known forgeries are in recent, modern catalogs. If you'd care to be a little more careful in reading the discussion, I was the one who pointed out the difficulty of weeding out Baktrian forgeries.

https://www.numisbids.com/n.php?p=lot&sid=4679&lot=421 All I'll say is, I do feel quite bad for whoever bought this one!

On the topic of die matches, there is also these: https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?term=imitating+Eagle+series&category=1-2&company=93&lot=&thesaurus=1&images=1&en=1&de=1&fr=1&it=1&es=1&ot=1&currency=gbp&order=1 . Attached is a very close example for the Zeus/Eagle one, which to me seems certainly cast. As for the other Athena/Eagle drachms, the style to me seems quite off, and completely unlike any other imitations that I have seen though I would be happy to see a counter-example.

Well, I'm not accusing you of deliberately flooding the market with fakes, of course; you handle a huge volume of coins, and on a frequent basis, and it's not exactly possible to look over everything with a fine-tooth comb. I mean "a lot" in a relative sense, the vast majority of your Baktrian coins are certainly authentic, but I have noticed a tendency to attribute coins as imitations when it seems more likely that they are inauthentic. https://www.numisbids.com/n.php?p=lot&sid=5591&lot=482 in recent memory; forgeries of this style from Pantaleon show up often on ebay (https://www.ebay.com/itm/133984804705?hash=item1f321ddf61 appears to be die-identical ).

Ah, I see it got withdrawn; https://www.numisbids.com/n.php?p=lot&sid=5902&lot=632 is a very common fake; common enough to show up 2 e-sales previous where it was also withdrawn https://www.numisbids.com/n.php?p=lot&sid=5803&lot=638. I would like to hear your thoughts on this type, however: https://www.sixbid-coin-archive.com/#/en/search?text=yuezhi dynasts

Roma certainly sells a lot of fake Baktrian coins, but I don't really see any issues with #600; what were people's suspicions?

Since we're talking about Leu, I finally managed to get this nice Antimachos I elephant bronze. Ex-Triton and at a very reasonable price compared to the usual Leu hammers.

Now, here we have one of my personal favorites: an issue of Hormizd II, from the Gandhara mint. For reference, it's ANS Kushan 2341 and Cribb 36. This is a small little coin, weighing only 2.98g; the weight standards for this mint gradually reduced from about 6g to less than 1g over the course of the Kushano-Sassanian period. Now, I know it's a lot to take in, it's quite the spectacular coin of course; to summarize, the obverse depicts the bust of the king facing right, in his signature winged crown with a lotus bud feature above. In front of the bust is a name in Bactrian, ΜΗΖΗ; some speculate it to be the name of a mint official, but I find that questionable considering the long period of time in which coins were minted featuring that name. The reverse is a gracefully rendered fire altar, standard for the mint. Hormizd II's reign was a short one, and his coins are exceedingly rare; no examples of this type were in the Donum Burns collection, and the ANS has only one example. His other bronzes are only slightly more common, and only 3 examples are known of his dinars; however, this is obviously the more interesting type, given how everyone prefers bronze over gold. It is thought that he would go on to become Sassanian king, under the same name, as they both share the same crown; this is only speculation, however.

Very late post-Kidarite Electrum dinar, issued by Yashovarman. I don't think I've seen any explanations of this type anywhere, so I'll give one briefly; the figure in the center of the obverse is a heavily abstract human; to the left, his arm has been turned into a set of 8 dots, with a letter in Brahmi below. To the right is the word "Kidara" in Brahmi. On the reverse is an extremely abstract version of Ardoxsho; to the right is the first half of the king's name (written from top to bottom), and in the lower-left corner of the coin the name continues.

Only one of yours looks imitative, actually; the fifth one appears to be a small unit Huvishka imitation. The others are all official issues from their respective regions.

Very nice examples! You are correct that your drachm depicts Mao, the shoulder crescents are unique to that deity. Your Huvishka looks likely imitative, with a blundered tamgha and legends; but, that being said, many of his later issues have blundered legends as well, so it's hard to say for sure. Huvishka's coinage is vast and complex, and the conditions of the coins make it tough to study.

I just noticed that this forum needs some Kushan coins, I'll help with that. I'll show off some (but not all) of the deities on Kanishka I's coinage. All coins feature the obverse of Kanishka standing at an altar, holding a spear and sacrificing; the reverse always has a Tamgha in the field, a symbol of uncertain meaning that changed with each ruler. First up is Mioro, sun god, radiate and making a blessing gesture; named as Helios on the earliest coins. Next is Athsho, god of fire and metals, holding a diadem; on some later coins he is depicted with tongs. On the dinars from his early reign, this god is identified as Hephaistos. Mao, the lunar deity; depicted with a sword and crescents on his shoulders. Identified as Selene on the earliest coins. Nana, holding an animal protome; spelled NANAIA in Greek. Frequently depicted on Kushan coins, and of Iranian origin. Oesho, an extremely syncretic deity, holding a trident, a water pot, a diadem, and a thunderbolt; the attributes he holds vary widely in number and type. Evidence exists that he was identified as Herakles on the earliest Greek issues, though here he is clearly identified with Shiva. Oado, god of winds, holding a billowing cloak; famous for disseminating along the silk road all the way to Japan. On the earliest coins, he is identified as Anemos. Finally, and most famously, the seated Buddha. Strictly speaking this is not the historical Buddha, who is depicted on other tets and is properly called Sakyamuni (SAKAMANO in Baktrian); this is Maitreya (ΜΗΤΡΑΓΟ in Baktrian), an eschatological Buddha who has yet to come. Two separate Buddhas are depicted on Kanishka's coinage, and not just one; Sakyamuni is by far the most common. There are 2 other gods missing here; Ardoxsho and Pharro. Both are exceedingly rare, and I have yet to get my own examples, but they can be found in museum collections. And there you have it, a small slice of Kanishka's bronze output; I'm only touching the surface here, there's plenty of other more esoteric bronze issues of his worth discussion, but for the time being I'll leave it at that.

An early and a late issue of Rajuvula; he issued a few lead types too, but these small drachms were his main issues.

Umayyad dirham minted in AH120. The mint is al-Bab, modern day Derbent, Dagestan, making this probably my only coin minted in modern-day Russia.

There are actually other rulers with finer and weaker styles; see the styles of the Antialkidas drachms here. In fact, for most rulers with more than ephemeral reigns there are slightly poorer style examples; it's just more pronounced with Apollodotos II because his coins are so common and he seems to have had some particularly bad mints. The reason that his coins aren't considered imitations is simple enough; the style of his poorer types is the one that was continued for every succeeding ruler, with his finer-style drachms being the last portraits that look particularly human. I haven't gotten any myself yet, but those would be Dionysios, Zoilos II, Strato II, Strato III, Apollophanes, and to a certain extent Hippostratos.

Both of your drachms are issues of Apollodotos II; the first one is simply a finer-style example.

Apollodotos II Drachm; this is what they look like in a higher grade.

"Meander" is not a king, it's Menander... at any rate, this is a posthumous issue struck in the name of the long-dead Indo-Greek king Hermaios struck by the Indo-Scythians.