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Author Topic: Unusual Prutah of Agrippa I  (Read 2711 times)

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Offline Aarmale

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Unusual Prutah of Agrippa I
« on: May 24, 2020, 12:58:48 pm »
A colleague of mine owns the attached coin of Agrippa I. The side with the grain stalks looks normal, but the reverse (usually showing an umbrella-like canopy) has some unusual shapes.

Does anyone have idea about how to interpret these shapes? (I have an idea myself but I will wait before mentioning it for a little to avoid biasing people.)

I can post other images under different lighting conditions if desired.
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Offline Nemonater

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Re: Unusual Prutah of Agrippa I
« Reply #1 on: May 24, 2020, 05:36:36 pm »
My first thought was that the beads were the bottom decoration of the umbrella but I don’t think that makes much sense. Interesting piece for sure.

Offline Snegovik

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Re: Unusual Prutah of Agrippa I
« Reply #2 on: May 25, 2020, 02:58:00 pm »
I believe that it is the border of dots and the tip of the umbrella. Probably, a double strike also.
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Offline cmcdon0923

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Re: Unusual Prutah of Agrippa I
« Reply #3 on: May 26, 2020, 01:08:46 am »
I also thought at first that it as simply an off center strike, but if you follow the slight apparent curve of the dots, they run smack into and go through the other design element visible on the coin. 

It just doesn't seem to line up properly with the design on a regularly struck example where the dots form a border around the canopy.


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Offline SC

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Re: Unusual Prutah of Agrippa I
« Reply #4 on: May 26, 2020, 09:04:02 am »
As was noted it is likely an off-centre strike plus a double-strike. 

The small dots and large dot are from the umbrella, the rest from the double-strike or over-strike.

If you search through the many examples of double-strikes on the forum, especially in the galleries, you can see how weird they can be.

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Offline v-drome

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Re: Unusual Prutah of Agrippa I
« Reply #5 on: May 27, 2020, 02:01:40 am »
More photos with the light at different angles might help.  I think the bottom of the wheat stalks are showing with the top of the umbrella, thus a flip-over strike.  In the top picture, the umbrella was struck first, followed by the wheat, and in the lower picture, the wheat was struck first, followed by the umbrella.  Plus I think there could have been two flans still connected by the lower sprue at the time, so somewhere there may be an equally strange coin to correspond with this one!  

Offline Aarmale

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Re: Unusual Prutah of Agrippa I
« Reply #6 on: June 02, 2020, 05:21:39 pm »
I agree that we see the top of the canopy. In fact, it may be that the letter "B" is also present in the right side. It may be that this is the work of a double strike, but as noted above there are many oddities about it---not only is there no trace of a second strike on the obverse, it is hard to identify the device produced by a second strike (maybe the canopy after a rotation?).

Attached are a couple more photos of the side under different lighting conditions.
Gallery: http://tinyurl.com/aarmale
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