velarfricative

On 5/30/2022 at 1:08 AM, Nerosmyfavorite68 said:

The coin isn't in-hand yet.  The dealer described the drachm as imitative, but I rather like the style.  Could crystallization account for the low weight?

Attribution: MACW 1782
Date: 160-145 BC
Obverse: Helmeted head of Menander right
Reverse: Athena advancing left with raised shield, brandishing thunderbolt
Size: 14.37mm
Weight: 0.90 grams

What mint is it supposed to be?

It is not imitative; this is a normal, albeit heavily worn, crystalized and chipped, drachm of Menander. Mints are not known for Indo-Greek drachms.

Hey, I've seen you on Cointalk but I've never had an account there to comment. Do you collect any of the Indo-Sasanian Hunnic Sindh gold issues, like the "Rana Datasatya" type?

On 5/29/2022 at 7:38 PM, quant.geek said:

For this site, I figured a different avatar was needed 😁.  In my family, we have a tendency to name our first born using one of the many names of the Hindu God of War, Kartikeya. It is a tonge-in-cheek pun wrt. the CoinTalk exodus. One of the few coins that has this deity depicted is the Yaudheyas' Tetradrachm where my avatar comes from...

Yaudheyas: Anonymous (ca 190-340 CE) Æ Tetradrachm (MACW-4707)

Obv: Kartikeya standing facing, holding a spear in his right hand, with a rooster to right; Brahmi legend Yaudheya-ganasya jaya around
Rev: Goddess Devasena standing slightly turned to her left with right hand extended

Whoa, very nice Yaudheya Tet! It's a shame that Kartikeya coins are so hard to find, but the ones that exist are very attractive; the Kushan dinars are quite nice, and the rare 6-headed silver drachm is stunning.

Not Samanid, but from their neighbors, the Tahirids. Album H1395, an issue of Abdallah b. Tahir; from the mint in Khwarizm in AH224.

Uniface silver horse unit from Samarqand; this one's 1.12g. Hilariously, this is in origin an imitation of Antiochos I's famous horse drachms; they were issued for such a long period of time that the obverse got totally obliterated and all that was left was some abstract horse shape.

Menander drachms, arranged chronologically. There are a small number of intermediate types I don't have here.

Eukratides II, quite an ephemeral king without the fame of his predecessor.

I suppose I can justify joining here, now that the odds are good I won't be arbitrarily banned by some absurd power-tripping moderator. 

My coins, by and large, have no history to them; all you have is what's on the coin. Here we have Lysias, sporting a nice elephant pelt as a hat on the obverse, and Herakles crowning himself in the reverse. Theories abound using motifs from one coin or another to justify dynastic connections between the Indo-Greek kings; I will ignore all that, and state merely that he seems to have a connection to Antialkidas given the similarity of their coinage and a very rare supposed joint bronze issue citing both kings.