Is it Alexander the Great on coins?

[Joe B2]

Hello everyone my name is Joe and I am looking for help with collection coin with the portrait of Alexander the great on them. Here in lays my question; as I look through the category of Alexander the great here on Forums I see all kinds of portraits now I some of them say portrait of Alexander the great on them and those are the ones I am looking for. However there are several coins that appear to have the same portrait on them but it seems that they are identified differently for example: obverse Herakles' head right, clad in Nemean lion scalp headdress tied at neck, and then on another coin with what I think is the same portrait on it as identified as: obverse head of Alexander the Great as Herakles right wearing lion scalp headdress. This is important to me because for some reason I seem to be deeply attracted to coins with Alexanders face on them as of the moment. Thank you for you help I look forward to reading everyone's posts!

[OldMoney]

One thing that is the closest to certainty is that the Tetradrachms of Lysimachos show the portrait of Alexander, influenced by the skill and execution of the artist at the various mints which produced them. Arguments will endure about whether any of the Alexander coins show his portrait or not, or whether a small sub-set do and others certainly do not. Debate continues. There are other threads within this forum (a quick search should lead you to these) as well as numerous articles and books about this subject both online and off. Martin Price's Alexander corpus is a great place to start, if you can access a copy from somewhere. I am sure this subject will attract a LOT of responses, perhaps even arguments. Good luck in your search.

Walter Holt

[Joe Sermarini]

In our catalog, we list the types that are normally identified as Alexander, that is posthumous issues usually with him wearing the horn of Ammon, sometimes wearing an elephant scalp, and in some cases wearing the in Nemean lion scalp (as Hercules).  If you see the portrait described as Alexander in the Forum Ancient Coins catalog, you can be confident that all (or most) references identify the portrait as Alexander.  

The common lifetime and posthumous Alexander types with Herakles are listed only as Herakles.  His features may have been used.  It may be Alexander as Herakles.  There are, however, Herakles portraits on Macedonian coinage that are earlier than Alexander and look more or less the same, so some argue it can't be Alexander.  Even if it was not his face on his own coinage, many ancient people probably assumed it was.