Well Sasanian are listed under Greek....

[panzerman]

Picked up this from NBJ Auctions....

Sasanian Empire

AV Dinara (3 Dated)? Balkh Mint

Peroz I 459-84AD

3.71g.   21mm. 12h

 

Please add your Sasanian coins😃 off to work!

[Finn235]

I was eyeing the handful of Indo Sassanians flanking that one but decided not to bid on anything. I noticed that one - is it an official mint product or an imitation? Style seemed very questionable to me!

[JAZ Numismatics]

Yeah, I don't understand the classification. Lots of dealers list their Sassanian coins as Greek, They have almost no connection to Greek coins.

[quant.geek]

I am not even sure if Sassanians struck gold coins....I heard from someone but don't remember who that almost all of the Sassanian gold coins that are offered are fake/imitations. Don't know if that statement is true or not...

 

[Deinomenid]

I've seen Sasanian gold coinage at the BM, and there's a lot of  it online there.

Eg https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/C_1848-0803-272

 

[Finn235]

It was the Parthians who didn't strike gold. Sassanian gold is fairly common.

[John Conduitt]

2 minutes ago, Finn235 said:

It was the Parthians who didn't strike gold. Sassanian gold is fairly common.

It's probably the Parthians' fault that the Sasanids are listed under Greek. The Parthians started out Hellenistic, following on from the Seleucids. The Sasanians were the bit in the middle before the arrival of Islam.

[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.'

[Finn235]

3 minutes ago, John Conduitt said:

It's probably the Parthians' fault that the Sasanids are listed under Greek. The Parthians started out Hellenistic, following on from the Seleucids. The Sasanians were the bit in the middle before the arrival of Islam.

To be fair, it can be kind of difficult to draw lines where Persia and Persian-affiliated coins are concerned. I've noticed that CNG differentiates "Eastern Greek" from "Central Asian" based on whether they use Greek or another language. Other auction houses place them under Greek, or sometimes even in the world coins section, between Russia and Spain!

[panzerman]

Thanks for comments/ seems many auction houses lump Cathage/ Lydia/ Persia/ Parthia in with Greek.  Peroz I gold coins seem to have been struck at various mints/ Sasanian Empire. Then there are Huna coins with his portrait too. Kushano-Sasanian Empire has coins with different Peroz!

John

 

[JeandAcre]

Thanks for the enlightening expansion of the full range involved, @panzerman.  By comparison with Sasanian, even lumping the earlier ones, down to Parthia, makes relative sense....  But, yeah, auction houses should just come clean and expand their categories.  ...Could it be a selling point, by way of getting the attention of people who go straight to Greek?

[panzerman]

i think it sheer laziness/ lumping is less work for them.

 

Even in 10 th. ed. Friedberg "Gold coins of the World" they still omit Sasanian/ Merovingian/ Visigoth gold coinage. Also some Oriental issues from Khymer Kingdom/ Malay States missing.....

 

[velarfricative]

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.