Some time ago I wrote an article called "From coin collector to Numimatist" where I wrote; " I discovered I
had a fascination for the early
monogram types: can I find out if they are really single year issues? Sadly I quickly found that apparently all the very early examples are
rare in the market, thus expensive and not a likely fruitful
area. This in reference to my love of the spread
flan stephanophores of Hellenistic
Athens. Yes the very early ones are scarcer and thus expensive but quite a few have come onto the market since I wrote that originally 7+ years ago. In that time I decided to collect as many of the
Thompson old
catalogue issues as I could and
hoards that appeared peicemeal on
ebay became a fruitful source supplemented with
auction buys.
Now I have completed a
collection of an example of EVERY
Thompson old
catalogue Athens NewStyle in various grade of condition from "sort of awful" to "really nice" from less than a £100 to somewhat over £2000!
As far as I know it is an unique achievement,certainly in the private
collection world and because of one coin probably in the international museum world too-the most likely challenger is the
ANS and a combined picking of Greek
collections owned by the Greek and Turkish state museums which hasn't happened.
The 28 issues of the Old
catalogue as in
Thompson's NSSCA are seen as yearly issues-without any real evidence except other than 2 remarkable
hoards both complimentary and published in CHX: the
Gaziantep hoard and Commerce:The Demetrios l
Hoard that reveals that the internal chronolgy sequence proposed by Margaret
Thompson upto issue 22 seems to be correct. And that
amphora letters when existing ,on the whole, are month indicators and not
coded quantities of numbers of coins minted.
The 29 coins of the 28 yearly issues seem at odds except that
Thompson issue #4 exists as a no symbol issue and a symbol issue with
Cornucopia and sharing of obverses between the two and
hoards show evidence to both being produced simultaneosly.
The most favoured starting date confirmed by
Seleucid dated coins particularly in the CHX
hoards show that c 164 BC to be correct and yearly issues certainly until
Sulla embarked on
his expedition to break the power of Mithradates
Eupator.
The old
catalogue comes to natrural end with the production of NewStyles that contain three magistrates and both
amphora controls and 2nd controls that are mainly below the
amphoraThe coins are in my
members'
gallery which no longer allows me to add coins and details so I snook the last one here which sort of works..
Athens New Style c 140/39 BC
tetradrachmObs :
Athena Parthenos right in tri-form helmet-No Pegassos
16.60 gm 31 mm
Thompson catalogue : Obs 278 : REV not in plates?
Rev : ΑΘΕ
ethnicOwl standing on overturned panathenaic
amphoraUpon which
Amphora mark : M
Below control mark : ΕΜΦ
2 magistrates : ΚΤΗΣΙ ΕΥΜΑ
RF symbol :
Nike presenting
WreathAll within a surrounding
olive wreath