Jump to content

Early countermarked electrum coin or protocoins?


Bonshaw

Recommended Posts

I am interested in understanding the nature of countermarks / banker's marks in some of the earliest electrum coins and protocoins. For reference, I include a photo of a countermarked Lydia lion (an early Weidauer XV trite).

CountermarkLydiaLion.jpg.4c83625ec7528c6bef591355750541a1.jpg

Does anyone have examples of early countermarked electrum coins and protocoins? I'm particularly interested in countermarks on

  • Early typeless electrum protocoins (Ionia / Lydia)
  • Striated electrum
  • WALWET / KUKALIM inscribed electrum
  • PHANES electrum

But any early countermarked electrum is interesting - thanks for posting any that you know of (or have in your collection)!

 

Edited by Bonshaw
  • Like 3
  • Thinking 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Bonshaw changed the title to Early countermarked electrum coin or protocoins?

You probably  know  it, but there's a huge study, White Gold, that in a series of essays covers  this a few times. The book  -or vast tome - has no index though so it might be easier to look through the different subessays  online.

No-one knows what they were or what they were for, and  there are endless debates, even really  just squabbles about it.  Apparently  the occasional early Lydian coins had as many as 18 countermarks, which to me makes most likely that they were owner marks. A.R. Bellinger has a good essay on them in the Robinson festschrift  and he was fairly sure they were owners' marks though maybe I'm  just suggesting work that matches my prejudice.  The key seems to be that why would there be so many marks if they were from money changers to mark them as acceptable currency, but that's disputed...

 

Why it would be disputed is beyond me though as fourrees can have a number of different marks too. Even Kraay vacillates, saying they were likely money changer marks but also saying similar marks on darics etc are possibly owner marks. Short answer is  no-one knows and it's  up to one's common sense to decide the likeliest reason.

Here's a fairly early one of mine with a couple of marks...
 
LYDIA. ALYATTES OR WALWET, ca. 610-546 BC.
Electrum trite (1/3 stater), 4.71 g, 12 mm. Uninscribed issue of Sardes.
Weidauer Group XVI, 89
 
screenshot-2022-12-25-at-17-43-25-vilmar-cat-04-proof-pdf_orig1.png.eaa7000d5b44441d7c35c71e691359f9.png

 

  • Like 11
  • Gasp 1
  • Heart Eyes 2
  • Thinking 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

15 minutes ago, Bonshaw said:

read the sections on counter marks.

Annoyingly, they are all mixed in with the other essays, and there's no way to find them short of reading the whole thing,  but all the subessays are  available online as pdfs at academia.edu and  elsewhere  so are more easily searchable. Good luck!

 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...
On 2/27/2024 at 4:02 PM, Deinomenid said:

Annoyingly, they are all mixed in with the other essays, and there's no way to find them short of reading the whole thing,  but all the subessays are  available online as pdfs at academia.edu and  elsewhere  so are more easily searchable. Good luck!

 

Thank you for this pointer!  I found everything I was looking for in Velde's article in White Gold.

 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...