My Top 25 Coins (Maybe)

echizento => I smiled a minute ago when I visited the thread "Picture the Poster" and I saw a 40 year old photo of you (apparently you were in the navy => you're a darn good lookin' chap!!) => but I'm a bit curious, is that the most recent photo you've got!!?



Oh, and speaking of good looking, did you happen to see my wife and I on page 43? (well, at least "she" is good lookin') ...

That's a very nice coin of CARAUSIUS Doug I've been tempted to buy one for 8 GBP just to have an example of this emperor. This is a very informative thread from the point of view and knowledge of an advanced collector, you will have to make a part 2 with 25 more.

Very nice coin, I hope to own one of these some day.

Along with the 'tufted beard,' the old fella sure has a thick neck!

Interesting stuff! Your right on Steve, I went and looked at my one Diocletian and my one Maximianus to see if they had any G's as well! Nada.

Good stuff Doug.

#20 Euthydemos II 190-171 BC Baktria Double Unit 7g. Merv mint

I listed more on the line above than on most of these 25 selections but I omitted the word that put this coin in the 25. Do you know what it is?

Baktrian coins are what I term only 'sort-of' Greek. Baktria was far too far east to be considered Greek but the coins bear Greek legends and look rather Greek in style. Alexander had spread Greek culture all the way to India. A significant number of Baktrian rulers issued interesting coins in gold silver and bronze but that brings us to why this coin is special enough to make the list. It is not gold, not silver and not bronze. It is nickel.



Actually the coin is very similar in alloy to the current United States 5 cent pieces at 25% nickel and 75% copper. There are more questions about these coins than answers. For example, I do not know how their value related to silver and bronze coins. I do not know why they decided to make nickel coins or why they stopped. I have seen guesses and suggestions but nothing I feel comfortable saying I believe. Whatever the reasoning about the matter, the world shelved the idea of nickel coins for 2000 years before trying it again.

Nickel tends to corrode harshly when buried so most examples seen are porous. My selected coin has the rather boring types of Apollo and a tripod. The legend reads 'of King Euthydemos'. Following Euthydemos, two more rulers (Agathokles and Pantaleon) issued nickel coins with more interesting Dionysos/panther types but the Agathokles in my collection is much rougher and yielded its place to coin #20. Today I had to show two coins under one number. I wonder if that will happen again before we finish the list? I'll leave it to others here to fill in details about Baktria and the history of nickel coinage if anyone finds these of interest.

Wow...that must be one of the earliest cupro-nickel coins! Given the rarity of the metal in ancient times, do you suppose the populace who spent them actually thought these were silver?
I don't know how hard it must have been to mine/refine nickel in ancient times, but cupronickel has a lower melting temp than just nickel. Steve, do you know if it's possible that nickel and copper occured together naturally as some "native" form?

DVC => I'm a mining engineer, so my specialty is loading drill-holes full of explosives and then runnin' like the wind!!


... so I personally don't know of any combined sulphide that contains both Nickel and Copper, but the two minerals are often found together (just like Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing, the Pandas) ...

NOTE => at our mine, "pentlandite" is the primary nickel mineral and "chalcopyrite" is a common copper mineral ...

Pentlandite:


chalcopyrite:

Steve, that's interesting--thanks! I was aware of chalcopyrite, but pentlandite is a new one for me.
As you say, nickel is usually combined with iron and sulphur in deposits, so this only raises more questions.
I have not heard of any Baktrian artifacts containing nickel--I saw an amazing exhibit a while back where the coins and jewelery were typically silver, gold, bronze and precious stones--but no nickel.
So why would an ancient mine trouble itself to separate out the nickel from the iron, then combine it with copper, simply to mint some coins? Were they short on tin to produce bronze?