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 Replies: 30 / Views: 4,520 |
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Valued Member
Canada
242 Posts |
Hi all,
I have roughly about 800 or 1.4 kg of unattributed silver coins from the Crusader era which were discovered in a single hoard. There is a mixture of Levon Crusader coins, Mamluk, Mongol, and Ayyubid coins.
I've just finally finished cleaning them all (they were all uncleaned initially), and am now trying to figure out how to begin the task of attributing them.
I believe that a number of the Mongol coins may be from Genghis Khan, although as I understand the Mongols used the coinage of the lands that they conquered.
I've been trying to find some useful resources that a lay person as I could follow, specifically on Genghis Khan coinage; however, I have had relatively little luck (other than a few pages about fake coins).
Does anyone know of a good online resource for attributing Genghis Khan silver coins?
thank you!
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Moderator
 Australia
16868 Posts |
www.zeno.ru is a good reference database for Asian and Islamic coins of all kinds. Genghis (variously spelled, also commonly spelled "Chingiz" or "Chinggis") like many barbarian warlords before him such as Attila the Hun, did not issue much coinage in his own name. It was his descendants that settled down to actually run the various countries that he conquered and found the need to issue large quantities of new coinages. But unlike Attila, Genghis can be found named on a few scarce pieces, such as this coin from Merv. It is unlikely you'd find many coins actually naming Genghis in a hoard from the Levant. You're much more likely to find Ilkhanid coins. 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
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Pillar of the Community
United States
5155 Posts |
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Moderator
United States
23731 Posts |
Wow! would love to see some pictures posted here. As Sap said Zeno is a good place to check.
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Valued Member
 Canada
242 Posts |
Thanks for the links, including your link ancientnoob.
I'll post a bunch of them very soon... I'm still learning how to take decent pictures though to warn you:)
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Pillar of the Community
United Kingdom
946 Posts |
I in particular would like to see photos of the "Levon Crusader" coins.
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Valued Member
Canada
242 Posts |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
5155 Posts |
There has got to be a fortune in there! Even at 5 bucks a piece it's thousands. Could be tens of thousands of dollars. What are you a templar?
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Valued Member
Canada
242 Posts |
hah I hope so...! I've always loved history, but I'm very new to coins...It's quite exciting though I have to say. I would have never thought that you could own coins from the ancient roman/greek empires, etc. It feels like a bit of a treasure hunt since at least in this case, I have no idea what I have.
I bought about 40 unattributed silver Roman coins too, so I'm slowly going through those as well (I think that I've figured out about 3 of them so far...and even those I'm not entirely sure about!).
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Moderator
United States
23731 Posts |
Wow those are fantastic. I'd be really lucky to find one of these let alone a hoard like this. Congrats. Post your Roman coins a few at a time an we will be glad to help you attribute them.
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Valued Member
Canada
242 Posts |
Thanks echizento - I'll post them as well.
I have some celtic white gold coins I just got as well, but I think that those are much easier to figure out since there seem to be far fewer of them. I found Chris Rudd's site as well, which was a tremendous help.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
513 Posts |
Feel free to post them even if you have them attributed. We all love seeing cool coins :)
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Valued Member
Canada
242 Posts |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
4973 Posts |
wow! how cool! you're doing a nice job cleaning, I've never cleaned silver coins. please tell your process if you have time.
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Valued Member
Canada
242 Posts |
hah thanks! I used the method posted on crusty romans.com - they wrap each coin in aluminum foil, and then put it in water with some sulphuric acid (which is in some types of drain cleaner). Once the reaction stops, they say to clean it with baking soda.
I did that, and then on top of that instead of just baking soda, used a small amt of baking soda, put a few drops of lemon juice on top, and rubbed it in tin foil right away.
I was starting to get a bit lazy though as time went on...I still have a couple hundred I still have to do. And many of the ones that I didn't post still need to be reclined probably. I wish that I could just soak them in lemon juice for a week and let everything but the silver just dissolve away!
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Valued Member
Canada
242 Posts |
Oops sorry 'recleaned' not 'reclined'
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Replies: 30 / Views: 4,520 |
Posted 07/07/2014 08:12 am
