My new coins

[lim]

Babylon coins-  Philip 3 Arriday.

[Kaleun96]

Do you know the weight of your lion stater coin? It might be an imitation rather than official issue. The style of Ba'al on the obverse is what made me first think it was an imitation but the style of the lion is also a bit off (e.g. the lion's tail doesn't loop up and then down on any examples I've recorded and the lion's mouth is a bit odd).

I have a double die match to your example recorded in my corpus and noted as an imitation. It also weighs just 15.37g, which is typical to see in imitative issues of this type.

That being said, imitations of the lion staters aren't well studied and identifying them really only comes down to determining which ones are stylistically abnormal so it's difficult to say whether it really is an imitation or of just different style for some other reason.

Here are some that I've recorded for this type (Nicolet-Pierre 7).

[lim]

Okay, I'll weigh the coin and tell you the weight. This coin was bought with vcoins

Edited November 19, 2024 by lim

[lim]

https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?term=babylon+Double+Sheke&category=1-2&lot=&date_from=&date_to=&thesaurus=1&images=1&en=1&de=1&fr=1&it=1&es=1&ot=1&currency=usd&order=1

There's a similar tail here. The face of a lion is different.

Edited November 19, 2024 by lim

[lim]

weighed 15.2 grams

[Kaleun96]

1 hour ago, lim said:

https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?term=babylon+Double+Sheke&category=1-2&lot=&date_from=&date_to=&thesaurus=1&images=1&en=1&de=1&fr=1&it=1&es=1&ot=1&currency=usd&order=1

There's a similar tail here. The face of a lion is different.

That tail is normal for the type, note how the tail doesn't go above the lion's back. On yours, it goes above the back and then comes down. The tail also comes out of the top of the back on yours, rather than out the side. And on these types, the tail almost always forms a U shape, it extends out horizontally, does a 180 degree turn, and comes back near-horizontal.

It's a small detail, I just noticed that none of the ~70 examples of this type that I have catalogued have a similar tail except for the example I had noted as a possible imitation.

 

Yours is perhaps similar to this example from Nicolet-Pierre 8:

I think it is possible that yours is an example of a NP 8 type rather than NP 7 because on your coin there's something in the left field of the obverse in front of ba'al that may or may not be a die break. If not a die break, it could be a very worn or even erased control symbol. That being said, I didn't find any reverse die matches between your example and one of the 56 examples of NP 8 I have catalogued.

 

Edited November 19, 2024 by Kaleun96

[lim]

[lim]

the shape of the coin is the same.

[lim]

The face of a lion is different from every lion. Maybe due to wear and tear on the stamp?

[Kaleun96]

2 minutes ago, lim said:

the shape of the coin is the same.

But the lion's tail is not. I'm only talking about the lion's tail.

[lim]

I can still look in the archive, maybe I’ll find coins with a similar tail.

[Kaleun96]

1 minute ago, lim said:

The face of a lion is different from every lion. Maybe due to wear and tear on the stamp?

Yes it's possible. Either the dies are very worn or the coin was struck badly but this is also characteristic of imitations in my experience. For example, this imitation has numerous issues with the die that produces a similar-looking lion's mane as to your coin.

I can't say for certain if it's an imitation or not. I can only note that the weight is quite low and the style is slightly abnormal for the type, not just the lion but also ba'al on the obverse.

[Kaleun96]

2 minutes ago, lim said:

I can still look in the archive, maybe I’ll find coins with a similar tail.

Do feel free, though keep in mind I've been recording every example on acsearch, that has come up at auction, has been in an old catalogue I've read, or is in a museum's collection for the past 2 years. I wouldn't have found them all but I would've found most, if not all, of the ones that will come up in your search.

[lim]

5 minutes ago, Kaleun96 said:

Do feel free, though keep in mind I've been recording every example on acsearch, that has come up at auction, has been in an old catalogue I've read, or is in a museum's collection for the past 2 years. I wouldn't have found them all but I would've found most, if not all, of the ones that will come up in your search.

If this coin was listed on the vcoins website in 2008, should it be in the database somewhere?

11 minutes ago, Kaleun96 said:

Yes

 

[lim]

Are there experts on the forum who could definitely tell by the authenticity of the coin? Do I care if it is genuine or not?

[Deinomenid]

9 minutes ago, lim said:

Are there experts on the forum who could definitely tell by the authenticity of the coin? Do I care if it is genuine or not?

?

You've been speaking with the expert, at great length, here.

It's extremely difficult to definitely tell the authenticity of a coin from photos (if by authenticity  you mean if the coin is a fake or not). It's easier - in some circumstances - to declare a fake from a photo,  but even that needs certain specifics - wrong metal,  pressed/cast, known fake, transfer errors duplicated, impossible reverse and obverse combination etc.

Though you asked  for experts  here, there are other places to help check fakery risk - the falschungen section of the German forums, forgery network and  forum ancient's fake section.

Edited November 19, 2024 by Deinomenid
typo

[Kaleun96]

17 minutes ago, lim said:

If this coin was listed on the vcoins website in 2008, should it be in the database somewhere?

Not usually unless it sold previously at auction. However, you can often find sale records from Vcoins on the dealer's page. I went through many of these myself to find examples for my corpus. For example, here's a search result of sold coins for one dealer called Pars Coins.

15 minutes ago, lim said:

Are there experts on the forum who could definitely tell by the authenticity of the coin? Do I care if it is genuine or not?

It's likely genuine, I'm only questioning whether it might be an imitation. In other words, whether an unofficial mint replicated the design and struck this coin for their own purposes (i.e. not struck in a mint authorised by Alexander III to mint these coins).

[lim]

Thank you for your help.

[lim]

The tail is raised here.

[lim]

As for the mane, maybe it's a double coinage?

[Kaleun96]

5 minutes ago, lim said:

The tail is raised here.

This is a coin issued under Seleukos during his 2nd satrapy after 311 BC. It is irrelevant to the discussion as to whether your example is an imitation. These issues are separated by at least 10+ years. The tail style changes, we know this, but the important thing is to compare the style within a type. Your coin is either Nicolet-Pierre type 7 or 8, so you need to be comparing your coin with other examples of those types.

The tail is also not the same as your coin but as I mentioned it's irrelevant anyway.

[lim]

Here is a similar tail

[Kaleun96]

5 minutes ago, lim said:

Here is a similar tail

Yes that one is more similar (though still different) but please read what I said to you before: you need to compare styles within the type. That coin is not the same type.

It is difficult to have these conversations with you because you seemingly ignore everything I say and then repeat the same mistake you made previously. If you keep ignoring my arguments and just repeating the same thing over and over, I'll stop replying in this thread too. You can absolutely disagree with me but you need to make an argument, not just post a coin and say "this one is similar". That's not an argument.

Why is it important to compare within the type? Because from my experience, imitations of these coins may have tails that are unusual in style for the type they are imitating but that are not unusual for another type in the series. This isn't entirely unexpected. It's often the case, in general, that imitative coins borrow stylistic elements from multiple types and together those stylistic elements are abnormal for the type being imitated.

In this case, we have ~120 examples from Nicolet-Pierre type 7 and 8 and none of them have the same tail as your coin. The tail style may be found on other types but the fact that it is not found on coins of the same type is very unusual with such a large sample size. The tails on type 7 are all very similar to one another, there is very little variation in that type.

[lim]

I'm looking for it, but I haven't found the same type of coin yet.

[lim]

And this one?

Greek Silver
Babylon, Satrap Mazaios. Tetradrachm; Babylon, Satrap Mazaios; 328-311 BC. Tetradrachm, 15.60g. Cf. Babelon-289/90 and Pozzi-2871. Obv: Baal seated l., holding scepter. Rx: Lion walking l., G above.. F