Tetartemorion from Lampsakos in the ancient Greek region of Mysia (now in Turkish Anatolia). It's from c. 500 BCE and at 0.14g and 5mm, it's my new smallest coin. I'd like to know the archaeological context when this was found. If you don't pay attention, you could easily miss it.
The seller wrote "Claudius II' but I'm pretty sure it's Gallienus (260–268), though the beginning of the name is missing. The standing figure on the reverse (Felicitas?) is holding a caduceus. This will help to narrow it down.
Two Byzantine "Aspron Trachys". I know nothing about these but got them for almost nothing, especially the first one, though it seems to be more interesting with its inscription (…ANI).
In some Aristophanes play we studied back at high school, it was either the Frogs or the Clouds, but it mentioned the protagonist, Procleon was a serial juror and it was popular for old men who were paid the hemitartemorion and other fractional obols for their service and often hid the coins under their tongues as they were so small.
Cleon was an unpopular leader of Athens around 422BC and the old man was deceived by him, whereas the play's hero Anticleon was “rightfully” opposed to Cleon. I forget all the details as it was 30+ years ago.
I love the photo to show scale, 3 years ago I bought some Maundy silver pennies (10.5mm and 0.46g weight) and a briefly issued silver 1½d coin (12.3mm and 0.71g) and showed them in comparison to a Florin (28.5mm - 11.3g) and a sixpence (19mm - 2.8g).
yet even these coins are huge next to your teensy Greek fractionals. Its amazing these tiny coins have survived over 2 millenia as well!
I love coins. Especially silver, gold and anything really old.
Member of the Royal Numismatic Society of New Zealand and the Auckland Numismatic Society
Those Ancient Greek coins are incredible! I am surprised how much detail there actually is on the Tetartemorion considering it is only 5mm. The almost square-shaped and irregular one are interesting as well, do you know if they were originally struck in this shape or if this is a result of damage?
My smallest coin would be an Indian gold fanam which is 8mm in diameter. Here it the diameter and thickness compared with the cartwheel twopence:
I have a friend who specializes in Kyzikos fractionals. I'm just getting a few of them from one of my favourite eBay sellers who happens to have one or two every week so far this summer. My friend and I were wondering how the Greeks could produced such detailed “micro-dies” with the rudimentary equipment at their disposal.
After I put everything back in its place I realized I should have taken a picture at an angle to show thickneſs. Next time maybe… I should also have placed my George I silver penny beside the largest fractional. It's about the same weight I believe.
As for the shape, ideally they should be round, but the blanks are at best approximately round. And they didn't use a collar back then as we do now in minting.
What Moneytane says about Aristophanes is often quoted by Greek numismatists (i.e. numismatists who study ancient Greek coins). I think it's part of the joke since I can't imagine you'd be able to control your swallowing enough for this to be a safe place. It's probably a joke we can't get unleſs one can find the source in a food-related treatise — possibly a medical text such as included in the Hippocratic Corpus (i.e. the collection of ancient Greek medical treatises by Hippocratus and his students). I have another friend, this one specializing in ancient foods, and will ask him.
An East Germany 5 Marks 1970 125th Anniversary of Birth of Wilhelm Röntgen. One of the more uncommon coins found in a lot of East German commemoratives and a nee addition to my Eastern Bloc/Cold war collection.
I have a friend who specializes in Kyzikos fractionals. I'm just getting a few of them from one of my favourite eBay sellers who happens to have one or two every week so far this summer. My friend and I were wondering how the Greeks could produced such detailed “micro-dies” with the rudimentary equipment at their disposal.
After I put everything back in its place I realized I should have taken a picture at an angle to show thickneſs. Next time maybe… I should also have placed my George I silver penny beside the largest fractional. It's about the same weight I believe.
As for the shape, ideally they should be round, but the blanks are at best approximately round. And they didn't use a collar back then as we do now in minting.
What Moneytane says about Aristophanes is often quoted by Greek numismatists (i.e. numismatists who study ancient Greek coins). I think it's part of the joke since I can't imagine you'd be able to control your swallowing enough for this to be a safe place. It's probably a joke we can't get unleſs one can find the source in a food-related treatise — possibly a medical text such as included in the Hippocratic Corpus (i.e. the collection of ancient Greek medical treatises by Hippocratus and his students). I have another friend, this one specializing in ancient foods, and will ask him.
Yes some things like Anticleon and Procleon stick in my mind. I always loved Classical studies, but always got really bad marks in it. I thought I was the be and end all of classics and I always got C's for it.
Love how you are using a proper long s, is there actually a keyboard hack for it. My keyboard is from 2006 and recycled from some long dead PC of mine, mainly as new ones are too small, flat and not designed for anyone's fingers that are over 14mm wide.
I love coins. Especially silver, gold and anything really old.
Member of the Royal Numismatic Society of New Zealand and the Auckland Numismatic Society
An East Germany 5 Marks 1970 125th Anniversary of Birth of Wilhelm Röntgen. One of the more uncommon coins found in a lot of East German commemoratives and a nee addition to my Eastern Bloc/Cold war collection.
Nice addition, I would love to see what else is in your Eastern Bloc/ Cold War collection.
An East Germany 5 Marks 1970 125th Anniversary of Birth of Wilhelm Röntgen. One of the more uncommon coins found in a lot of East German commemoratives and a nee addition to my Eastern Bloc/Cold war collection.
Nice addition, I would love to see what else is in your Eastern Bloc/ Cold War collection.
Thankyou. My Cold War collection consists mainly of Warsaw Pact countries coins. A few space related pin badges, military badges, medals and an NVA DDR parade jacket. West Germany is also included as I class them as one of the closest western allied countries to be stuck in the middle of it all. It's amazing how many East German coins are still around when a vast majority were melted down after reunification. This coin is one i've never come across until now but I always buy the commemorative DDR coins if cheap enough and this came in a lot of 7 commemoratives for £8 so can't really complain. It's a country that no longer exists which makes it very interesting and the others will just be spares that I keep anyway from countries such as this unless another collector needs one for a swap. The banknotes of DDR on the other hand have eluded me. I have a few from the 60s and 70s series though. What's interesting about the Federal Republic of Germany coins after 1990 is the A mintmark for Berlin reappears on the Deutschemarks after reunification along with the others. East Germany is probably the easiest Germany to complete a series of types and years though with no mintmarks to collect.
Love how you are using a proper long s, is there actually a keyboard hack for it. My keyboard is from 2006 and recycled from some long dead PC of mine, mainly as new ones are too small, flat and not designed for anyone's fingers that are over 14mm wide.
Thx — I just copied it from Mr. Midnight's post. When I use a keyboard with the number pad, I use the “alt + code” for different symbols, especially when I write in French and don't want to switch to the French keyboard.
I have a few more addititons of my own, not all fully identified:
Bronze as of Domitian (ruled 81–96). Specs provided by the seller: 7.65g, 26mm.
Obverse: IMP CAES DOMIT… GERM COS X C P P (or C F P). He is COS X (consul for the 10th time) which is 84 CE.
Reverse: FORTVNAE AVG… S C. It looks like AVGSTI (with missing V). If so, this is a major variant. All 12 examples of the FORTVNAE… legend on the wildwinds Domitian page give AVGVSTI in full (i.e. never AVG followed by something else nor AVGSTI); likewise the 10 pages here on Numista. Most interestingly, a search for AVGSTI in OCRE returns eight results, one of which is for Domitian under Vespasian (ruled 69–79), and therefore not this coin. Something to investigate further…
Faustina the Younger, sestertius.
EDIT — It's actually Lucilla, daughter of M. Aurelius, with VENVS standing holding sceptre and apple: RIC III 1763.
Constantius II, Alexandria Mint.
and
The second one was identified by tatinos2 in this Numista thread (first of two coins).
I'm quite positive the first one shows a bee, which is more obvious with the coin in hand. It's therefore a fraction silver from Ephesus.
Constantius II as Caesar (heir). FL IVL CONSTANTIVS NOB C
Last things for this month! Coworker gifted me a pile of coins. And while there’s too much to photograph all at once, I did dig these 3 out of the pile!
