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 Replies: 7 / Views: 5,710 |
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Pillar of the Community
United Kingdom
709 Posts |
I recently acquired 2 coins labelled "Empire Cherifien", which I believe refers to the ex French colony ofMorocco. They have "MAROC" on them, which is the French word for that country. One coin is a lightweight white metal, marked 5 francs and dated 1370. The other is a heavy yellowmetal like brass, labelled 50 francs and dated 1371. What is the meaning of the dates? French Morocco only existed from about 1912 to 1956. The Islamic year count began in 622 CE so it does not add up. Are these numbers something other than dates? Thanks in advance. 5f coin, 25mm 1.8g, 50f coin 27mm 8.1g     |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1840 Posts |
1370 is actually the Arabic equivalent to 1951. Remember that the Arabic world doesn't typically use the birth of Christ as a significant event on their calender.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2605 Posts |
The reason the arithmetic doesn't work there is that the majority of Muslim population use the Lunar Hejira calendar, their years follow moon cycles rather than solar ones. Therefore their years are shorter than ours (by about 11 days). One of the consequences of that is the New Year shifting through the seasons all the time.
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Pillar of the Community
 United Kingdom
709 Posts |
How did you calculate 1951? I thought the Islamic year 1 AH was equal to 622 AD. This is what I meant by not adding up, since 1370 AH would then be 1992AD.
Ah - I have just read the above post at the same time as mine. The shorter year explains it.
Does anyone know where a table can be found showing equivalent years?
Edited by Anaximander
02/29/2012 8:51 pm
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
695 Posts |
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Pillar of the Community
United Kingdom
709 Posts |
Today I found in a coin book a simple method of converting AH to AD.
multiply AH by 0.97 rounding to nearest year, then add 622.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2605 Posts |
Some coin books have even simpler methods. In the Standard Catalog by Krause publications there's a table of conversion. I haven't been able to find similar tables online, only interactive pages like aiglet's.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2605 Posts |
A tip, Anaximander, when you post pics of coins in the future give the files original names, otherwise all your pictures will be replaced with the new ones, like it happened in this thread. We don't want the threads to lose their meaning so we could reference to them later.
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Replies: 7 / Views: 5,710 |
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Posted 02/29/2012 8:48 pm
