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 Replies: 92 / Views: 15,356 |
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Pillar of the Community
 United States
6130 Posts |
Thanks all! Glad the coins and write-up are being enjoyed!  @fioti, this was my "hush-hush" project last year because it took me about a year to amass these coins. I was greedy and enjoyed the lack of bidding competition on what I knew to be very rare coins  I had hinted that I was building a new set, but wanted to keep it under wraps until I had enough to present. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
6130 Posts |
5.07 13mm 4.64g   Not much of note here except that we can see clearly that the lines that comprise the bowl and base of the fire altar are now (almost) the same length, rather than forming an hourglass shape. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
6130 Posts |
5.08 14mm 4.21g   A further development from 5.06, I just love that pudgy face! The three horizontal lines of the ribbon are definitely not present for this specimen! We can see both attendants' arms on the reverse, as well. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
6130 Posts |
5.09 12mm 4.77g   A bit more finely engraved, but also another step away from feeling "human". At certain lighting angles, one can't even tell this one has a nose; it's certainly impossible to distinguish between the lips, chin, and beard based on dot size alone. The curly part of the ribbon is also a bit larger and longer than the previous examples. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
6130 Posts |
5.10 14mm 4.45g   Blegh, such corrosion! Hard to tell much for sure with such pitted surfaces, but it almost looks like this one has no line connecting the nose to the head shape. That's it for the Vaghela type. The Vaghela dynasty was overthrown by the invading Muslims in 1304, after just 60 years of dominance over Gujarat. This ends the direct line of this type, although several imitative types existed in parallel and up to a century later in Malwa and along the southwestern coast. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
6130 Posts |
Series 6 - "Unusual nose" type Area - Gujarat region? Time period - 950-1300 AD? Attributed to - Unknown Overall rarity - Scarce to Very Rare Price range - $25-100 Fabric Flan diameter - Small Die size - Much larger than flan Typical centering - Fair Strike quality - Fair Thickness - Very thick Weight - 3.6 - 4.2g Typical wear - Light/Moderate Silver purity - Medium to Negligible Design Engraving skill - Poor Design relief - High This series is both very uncommon and poorly understood. Like the Vaghela type, there is generally little or no face, but there is the sudden addition of a mysterious shape where one might expect the nose. Unlike the more common later types, this "nose" spirals outward, away from the head. These are usually sloppily made, following the general guidelines, but with poorly shaped flans and crooked or uneven design elements. 6.01 16mm 4.18g   This is another of my most prized Indo-Sassanian coins, and one of the most important to understanding this series. This is the only example of this type I have ever seen that has a fully formed, easily recognizable face between the head shape and the new spiral shape. The fabric is a close match to the middle Gadhaiya Paisa types, although the style is much sloppier. The reverse in particular shows a complete lack of understanding of the "standard" reverse. The fire altar shows the characteristic Gadhaiya-style line pointing upward from the top of the flame, but the elements of the altar and flame are crooked and lean somewhat to the right. There is no sun, no moon, and no attendants; just a pile of disorganized dots flanking the altar. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
6130 Posts |
6.02 14mm 3.62g   Here the face is gone, there is just a head shape and a large, curly shape in front of it. We can still see the three horizontal lines of the ribbon, but they are crooked and unevenly spaced. The hat is still present, but doesn't really protray "wings" any longer. The reverse is crooked and sloppy; not much of it is present, but it seems apparent that it is purely imitative, based on guesswork about what was originally on the Gadhaiya Paisa dies, rather than a celator who had access to the original dies themselves. The silver content is decent, but this coin is far too light to be a "drachm" in the sense of the other coins of the series. Again, indicative that the manufacturers of this coin were just working on guesswork. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
7066 Posts |
Quote:
...but there is the sudden addition of a mysterious shape The plot thickens...  |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
6130 Posts |
6.03 13mm 3.60g   This one shares the same near-spherical ovoid shape of the "Malwa" types, and is superficially similar to 6.02 in terms of style. Here we can see the ear, which has moved right up against the head (deplacing the beard dots) and become much more stylized and simplified. The reverse is mostly off-flan, but interestingly, the arms have become completely vertical, basically forming a box around the central star of the fire altar! Again, there seem to be confused, random dots on the reverse. This coin is also quite dark, which along with the very light weight makes me wonder exactly what this is made of. The surfaces are good, so I suspect it is still a very debased billon, maybe 5-15% fine. |
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Moderator
 United States
23731 Posts |
I really need to start paying more attention to this type. Really interesting to see all the different variations.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
6130 Posts |
Every time I think I have the whole series represented, more varieties pop up! It has been a lot of fun to collect this series. This series in particular is a bugger to collect. ACSB-Rich has cornered the market on these; 6.01 is one of three, each with a $100 price tag. 6.02 was sight unseen from a lot of presumably similar pieces, $50 each. 6.03 was a random ebay find, about $25. All told, aside from the handful that have been BIN on ebay for the past year+, I have only seen these come up for auction 2 or 3 times. As expensive as they are, this is a good example of supply and demand in the ancient coin hobby. Heck, there may only be three coins in the world like 6.01, but they are still cheap compared to, say, Pertinax or Nero. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
6130 Posts |
Series 7 - Malwa type with Fire Altar Area - Malwa region? Time period - 950-1300 AD? Attributed to - Rajput kingdoms of Malwa Overall rarity - Less common Price range - $10-20 Fabric Flan diameter - Small Die size - Much larger than flan Typical centering - Fair Strike quality - Good Thickness - Very thick Weight - 4.3g (silver) 3.2 - 3.8g (copper) Typical wear - Light (silver) Heavy (copper) Silver purity - Good / None Design Engraving skill - Poor Design relief - Medium This series may be imitative of either the very late Gadhaiya Paisa, or the Vaghela type. They seem to usually come in reasonably good silver on extremely small and thick flans. They sport an unusual "nose" consisting of an upper line descending at a 45 degree angle, with a sort of upside down question mark, curling back toward the head. Where we found the ear on the previous series, we now see the letter "ja" in nagari script. Some have retained an "eye", while others do not have one. The silver also seems to be supplemented by a series of nearly identical designs in copper, which is often ignored and poorly understood. * I have found some good reading on the type here: http://www.indianetzone.com/51/coin..._plateau.htmThe author's hypothesis is that these coins were made by the predominantly agricultural rajput dynasties of the Malwa plateau; they would sell their crops for silver to mint these coins which would be used as trade currency and to pay tribute to the Chaulukyas to defend their fertile but tactically vulnerable farmland. 7.01 14mm 4.36g   This is (so far) the only example I own in silver that still has the eye present. So much is off of the flan that it's hard to make any meaningful observations, but we can at least see the horizontal lines of the ribbon. The top portion of the fire altar is visible on the reverse; the bowl is well formed, but the flames are not arranged in the typical pyramid shape. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
6130 Posts |
7.02 12mm 4.32g   Here we can see the full letter "Ja" behind the head. The eye is gone now, and the flan is too small to really capture much else of note. The center of the fire altar is visible on the reverse, which shows better artwork than the Unusual Nose type, at least. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
6130 Posts |
7.03 14mm 4.37g   Here we can see the full "nose" shape and a teeny tiny bit of the curly part of the ribbon in front of it; at least we know it's still there. Again, no eye on this specimen. Beneath the curl of the nose (this was the chin in the Gadhaiya Paisa and Vaghela types) there is a line through the dot; this will later transform into a star shape. On the reverse we can see the top of the fire altar again, and interestingly the arm of the attendant is almost vertical, just like on 6.03. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
6130 Posts |
7.04 13mm 4.29g   Again we can see the bottom curl of the nose and the star beneath it; the fire altar on the reverse again looks confused. Really not enough design on-flan to make any significant observations here. |
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Posted 06/08/2017 12:33 am
