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Author Topic: First islamic prototype Dirham[75 H]-Please help  (Read 1082 times)

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Offline Nassif

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First islamic prototype Dirham[75 H]-Please help
« on: February 05, 2007, 12:56:49 pm »
Dear members;
This coin as the Arab-sassanian coin already posted  and a third one [will be posted later],have been acquired recently by me from old collector.For the arab-Sassanian i haven't received any answer from S.Album yet..
Here the description of this COIN:
Obv:
-center:Kalima
-marginal legend:"in the name of God this Dirham was strucked at Wassit in the year seventy five"[khams wa sab'in] sic
PS;Already the arabic calligraphy is unusual with word "wahdahou" and "shairka"
Rev:
-center:"Surath 112 "th of Holy Kuran.
-marginal legend:"the prophetic mission" ,also with very curious calligraphy,without errors but with unusual way to write some words.[Arabic is my maternal language...].
The mystery is that Wassit started strucking coins in 84-85 H.So where this dirham was strucked?by whom?and why??this fatidic and unrecorded date??75H??.....
S.Album answered:"looks to me like a contemporary North African imitation,circa AH100-150"
I am not convinced at all by this response,for multiple reasons:calligraphy is very different from north african coins,the weight also:2,7 g,and the shape.Other major reason is that Umayyad ruler in spain :Abdel Rahman I[138-172 H] issued completely different coins and he didn't need to do imitation because of his own regular issue...
My opinion is that Dirham is among the first islamic dirham prototype and because of the unusual calligraphy it was probably left for more regular issue[look also at the trasversal signs on Obv.]
This coin was seen by several experts and look really ancient and authentic with a lot of weak signs on both side.
Please help to identify this major coin.
Thanks in advance.
nassif

bakkar

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Re: First islamic prototype Dirham[75 H]-Please help
« Reply #1 on: February 05, 2007, 04:30:39 pm »
Dear Nassif
As a collector of Islamic coins and a graduated in Arabic scripts and calligraphy
I can assure that Album is right in his view that the coin is merely a contemporary imitation
but not of north African origion. I think it is an imitation of wasit dirham 95H from
the far east provinces. the weight also does not matter in these typese of imitations.
In general Umayyad dirhems imitations are quite rare.
really nice coin and early Kufic script.

Bakkar

Offline Nassif

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Re: First islamic prototype Dirham[75 H]-Please help
« Reply #2 on: February 06, 2007, 01:20:30 am »
Dear Bakkar;
I agree with you that the origine is not North Africa as S.Album said,and as you said the script is very early Kufic type,may be with your experience with such kind of script you can tell us from wich year to which year this unusual script was used?Regarding the date,it's clearly  75 H[Khams wa Sabi'n-]sic.Other question:why choosen 75H instead of 95H?The difference is very huge between the word Tes'in and Sabi'n,we don't see the Teh of Tes'in,and there is also very evident the Beh of Sabi'n in the middle before the Ai'n...
Thanks a lot for your contribution.
Regards.
nassif

bakkar

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Re: First islamic prototype Dirham[75 H]-Please help
« Reply #3 on: February 06, 2007, 01:19:04 pm »
Dear Nassif
The coin is full of calligraphic mistakes and also mistakes in letters .
Look at the following:
letter "sin" in "Bism"
word "la-sharika"
the shapes of  words "Lamm" yalid and "lamm" yulad.
letter "H" in "Ahad".
"Muhammad" and "walaw" on the border.
The height of the first part of letter "s" in "sanat", why it is higher than letter "noon"
It should be the contrary...?..etc..
accordingly, the year on the coin is 95, all what the die-cutter has to make is to stretch
the first part of letter "T" in "tis'een"..  That is all.

regards
bakkar

Offline Nassif

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Re: First islamic prototype Dirham[75 H]-Please help
« Reply #4 on: February 06, 2007, 03:07:00 pm »
Dear Bakkar;
A lot of islamic dirhams have errors in calligraphy and sometimes error in words but not as many,and very rarely with date error;i don't think that's a minor error in changing sab'in to tes'in if it's really error??,you forgot also the beh arabic letter in the middle of the word sab'in,so it's not a matter to switch date to another because sab'in is correctly engraved and who did it knows really what was doing.I was surprised when you said:"accordingly, the year on the coin is 95";i never have seen all those errors in any dirham from year 95H.,so how you can judge the year accroding to calligraphy??
I checked a huge number of islamic dirham from that period and i never seen such kind of calligraphy,it looks like something new[somekind of prototype??] and we will never see something later in this kind.When imitation is done,there is several coins issued and this coin looks unique if it's really contemporary imitation,and the other question is:why to do such imitation ??and if such coins did exist ,where are published ?
Me as well as all Forum members,will be for sure very grateful if somebody can show us another similar coin with error in date??Mint and calligraphy.You don't think it's too much for one coin??
thanks again for your contribution.
nassif

 

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