FORVM`s Classical Numismatics Discussion Board
Numismatic and History Discussion Forums => Byzantine Coins Discussion Forum => Topic started by: Obryzum on January 30, 2018, 04:11:49 am
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[Reviving an old thread]
The coin is a solidus, 14mm and about 3.6g. But which emperor?
The only solidus I am aware of with both the obverse and reverse emperors wearing a chamlys is the very rare solidus of Constantine V published by Ohara, but that was a much larger diameter coin (21-22mm if I remember correctly). And the style of that coin was also different -- though the big noses and squinty eyes seemed to start under Constantine V.
The diameter and fabric here are consistent with a solidus of Michael II, but the iconography and small lettering style seems incompatible with Michael II. As Wroth noted in BMC, the heads started to become contorted during Leo V, and are a lot more contorted by Michael II's time. That was his reason to assign some AV with Michael's name to Michael I.
Could this be Michael I? That seems the most probable to me. Although the entire legend is missing on one side, the the legend on the other side seems to read :Greek_Theta_2: :Greek_epsilon: :Greek_Omicron: :Greek_Phi: :V2: :Greek_Lambda: :A3: or possibly :Greek_Theta_2: :Greek_epsilon: :Greek_Digamma: :Greek_Omicron: :V2: :Greek_Lambda: :A3: Or some variation of that. However, the difficulty is that Theophylact is bearded, but the senior emperor Michael I is not. Perhaps a mistake? Regarding the diameter and fabric, I am aware of a Michael I solidus with a diameter as low as 17mm. The problem is that the coins are so rare, few specimens are available for comparision purposes. The few that are available also have small letting like this.
Style seems compatible with Nicephorus or earlier, but I cannot reconcile the legend to any earlier emperor. The legend does not seem to fit with any variation for Leo, Constantine, Nicephorus, Stauracius . . . unless I am misisng something.
The style is also completely incompatible with Theophilus. Lettering too. And there is a very apparent :A3: at the end of the legend, which weights in favor of Theophylact rather than Theophilus. But then again, a bearded emperor.
Comments welcome!
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Could it be cast?
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Good question, Joe. But that leads to the question: Cast from what? What would be the proper attribution from the original source coin? Or at least the half of the coin with an inscription.
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A jewellery item (not a 'real' coin) ? I know of at least one ex for byzantine period.
Jérôme
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I am thinking the same as Jerome.
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Interesting. Thanks for the comments. I would appreciate seeing some examples of such jewelry psuedo-coins, if you have any.
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Here are some better photos
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Reviving an old thread about this mystery coin.
One thing that I did not pay attention to before was the beard. One side (with part of the legend visible) shows a bearded emperor. The other side (no legend) shows a beardless emperor. For that reason, this cannot be a coin of Michael I. Although the letters look like they might spell Theophylact, that cannot be the case because Theophylact was the junior emperor, and would not have been depicted with a beard.
I went through Marco Anastasi's book, and the style seemed to most closely match the tremissis from the last years of Leo III's reign, particularly the shapes of the faces and the style of the cross potent. Could those letters be referring to Leo III? Searching through acsearch.info, I found a die match. This tremissis (14mm 1.25g) was in a 2014 Heritage auction, and the notes say that the coin was also part of the Dreesmann collection that sold in a Spink auction in 2000.
Now here's the odd thing: My coin is the weight corresponding to a solidus (3.65g). So was the same set of dies used to strike a solidus and a tremissis? For Constantinople issues, sometimes dies were used interchangeably with other denominations, but I never heard of this practice with coins minted in Syracuse. So it seems very strange?
Were both coins struck from modern dies? If so, the style is really good. And the date of the 2000 Spink auction would mean that the dies have been around for a long time. But no other coins have been appearing in auctions for more than 20 years. On close inspection under 20x magnification it is clear that the solidus was struck, not cast. I should take some better photos . . .
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I strongly believe that your coin is a struck copy. Although in my eyes it has all the hallmarks of a struck coin, the dies used to make it were copied from an original coin by some sort of transfer method.
I have seen many of such copies in various auction catalogues over the last 10+ years and I have fallen for such a thing once, yet got my money back after I presented extensive proof to the auction house. As a general rule I am now buying Syracusan gold coins only, if they come with solid old pedigrees. That said, I rarely ever find Byzantine gold from Sicily which I am comfortable buying.
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Thanks byzcoincoll. Yes, I share your suspicion. To me the biggest problem is the just-discovered "two denomination" problem. The next problem is the small diameter, which is too small for a mid-8th century solidus from Syracuse. Others have commented on the odd appearance, which seems to be the result of some flattening after striking. Constantine's nose has been squashed. The details of the hair are missing -- as if these have also been squashed. Yet is is clear from the other coin that the details were present in the original die.
It would be nice to see some confirmation in the form of some other samples from the same dies. Creating transfer dies takes some effort. It does not seem worth the effort to strike a single coin, in the wrong denomination, using 3x as much gold as the coin ought to have. But then again, counterfeiters have been known to go to great lengths even for low grade, low value coins. I am curious what the XRF results would show for the composition of the gold.
I bought this coin years ago from a reliable source, someone known to everyone who reads this board, but with what was obviously a wrong attribution. It was attributed to Michael II, and it obviously does not share the portrait style of Michael II.