20171024

GREECE/Armenia; Tigranes II BCE 95-56


Æ Chalkous  (5.24 g, 17 mm, 11h). Tigranakert mint. Struck c. 80-68 BC.

 CAA 93 corr.; AC 48

O:Draped bust right, wearing five-pointed Armenian tiara decorated with star between two eagles

R: [BAΣΙΛΕΩΣ] BAΣΙΛΕΩN TIΓPANOY, Tyche of Antioch seated right, holding palm with Orontes at her feet; TP monogram across inner right field  A below.


ex: Warren Esty

20171022

Pocket Change

 Pocket change from a trip to Italy Fall 2017
Austria 20c 2016 (Leuchtturm 2018 Catalogue Euro #LN-K5.2 30 million minted)

Some friends who are not collectors recently returned from a two week trip to Italy and brought back (at my request) their pocket change from the trip that ended up being about
€7,00 or 23 coins in denominations from 1c to €1,00 (2c coins were missing from this sample).
My interest in their pocket change was out of a curiosity based upon my interest in Roman coins and knowing a little about how Roman coins of different mints, some far afield from where they were eventually found in hoards circulated freely in the "common market" of the Roman Empire.
No hard and fast conclusions can be gathered from this small sample, but I find it interesting that for the first time since the collapse of the Roman Empire, Europe has a standard currency that circulates as its Roman predecessors did 18 centuries ago.
This sample of 23 coins can be broken down as follows with coins originating in:

Austria 1   4.3%
Spain    5    21.7%
Germany 5  21.7%
Italy 10   43.4%
Greece 1  4.3%
France 1   4.3%

The 56.6% of the sample originates from outside Italy, but the largest single contingent is Italian in origin, followed by Spain and Germany.

By denomination, the breakdown is as follows:

1-1c (Italian origin and not found in change but picked up randomly from the ground)

2-5c (1-France, 1-Italy)

7-10c (3-Italy, 3-Spain, 1-Greece)

6-20c (1-Italy, 2-Germany, 1-Austria, 2-Spain)

4-50c (2-Italy, 2-Germany)

3-€1,00 (2-Italy, 1-Germany)

Mints and Dates:

1c Italy 2013

5c Italy 2002, France 2007

10c  Greece 2002, Italy 2007 & 2011, Spain 1999 & 2005

20c Italy 2002, Austia 2016, Germany 2002F & 2002J, Spain 1999, 2007

50c Italy 2002, Germany 2002D

€1,00 Italy 2009 & 2010, Germany 2002G

Distances:

The coins from Spain traveled approximately 1,200 miles East  from Madrid to their destination in Rome which was the furthest any of the coins traveled with one of the German coins traveling from Hamburg (mint) South to Rome at about 1,030 miles. The Greek coin traveled approximately 836 miles west from Athens to Rome.
 
 





 

20171014

ISLAMIC/Abbasid; Harun ar-Rashid CE 786-809/AH 170-193

AR Dirham, 2.89 g, 21 mm, 3h, Madinat as-Salaam (Baghdad) mint AH 192 (CE 807-808)

Album 219.2
Wilkes 384

O:  inner inscription:

لا اله الا

الله وحده

لا شرك له

Outer inscription:

بسم الله ضرب هذا الدرهم بمدينة السلام سنة اثنتين وتسعين و ماءة

R: inner inscription:

محمد

رسول

الله

ه

Outer inscription:

محمد رسول الله ارسله بالهدى و دين الحق  ليظهره على الدين كله ولو كره المشركون