Please Help Me Identify Ancient (Indian?/Persian?) Coin

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Author	Replies: 4 / Views: 3,824
williskm New Member United States 2 Posts	Posted 03/28/2014 11:11 am My mother recently gave me this old coin and I've spent hours trying to identify it. She kept it from an old relationship with a man from India. He claimed it was dated to 12th century and had been passed down for generations in his family. I have verified that the bezel is gold, but the coin itself is likely brass, as it had a blue tinge from copper. Sadly, my mother cleaned it, which likely ruins the numismatic value. I'm mainly interested in the identification so I can research the history. The front has a bearded man holding a bird(?) skewed on a spear with a with a curved saber at his waist. The back looks like a seated man accompanied by a person holding a fan(?) to his left and a musician playing a sitar to his right. I didn't have a ruler, so I pictured with my fingers in hopes of providing a perspective for its size. Report this Post to the Staff

thai-vic Pillar of the Community Thailand 1509 Posts	Posted 03/29/2014 04:29 am Possibly a Sikh medallion. The reverse showing Guru Nanak attended by Mardana and Bala? Try this link for more info. No idea about the age of yours. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guru_Nanak And this for images: https://www.google.co.th/search?q=m...1162&bih=674 And this candidate for the face? https://www.google.co.th/search?q=m...sch&imgdii=_ Edited by thai-vic 03/29/2014 04:41 am Report this Post to the Staff
alganbagerap Pillar of the Community United Kingdom 2490 Posts	Posted 03/29/2014 05:20 am If it is Sikh, and it certainly looks right, then the very oldest it can be is 16th Century. Stylistically yours appears to be C19th. I lived in a Sikh community for 30 years and will ask a few old friends to look at this for you. Report this Post to the Staff
Sap Moderator Australia 16839 Posts	Posted 03/29/2014 08:44 am Correct. It's a Sikh "temple token". Temple tokens are what we Westerners call any coin-like religious amulet from India; followers of Hinduism, Islam and Sikhism all use them, though each religion of course uses them for different purposes and each carry their own distinctive artwork. If you look at This zeno.ru page of Sikh temple tokens you will find several with this exact same design, though perhaps engraved slightly differently each time. It likely is not very old. While I can't speak for Sikh items specifically, I know the vast majority of Hindu and Islamic temple tokens are very modern - made since 1950. Many temple tokens bear strings of numbers that look like they might be dates, although in most cases these "dates" are either entirely fictitious (claiming the token is much older than it actually is) or a complete fantasy, a random string of numbers not correlating to any possible calendar used by that religion. Many of the Sikh tokens on the abovelinked page are "dated" to AD 1804, though they were made post-1950. Don't say "infinitely" when you mean "very"; otherwise, you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite. - C. S. Lewis Report this Post to the Staff
williskm New Member United States 2 Posts	Posted 03/29/2014 10:31 am Thank you so much! Interesting story regarding how they exaggerate the dates. I think the story is still very fascinating and I will pass it along to my family. I appreciate all of you taking the time to share your extensive knowledge. Report this Post to the Staff
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