I wanted to wait until someone else posted a coin from 1599 - I wasn't sure this one would count! It's fully identifiable to a single year, and that year corresponds to 1599.
There's actually a date on it. It just didn't show up properly.
Um, that's a coin? It looks like a misshapen bit of metal.It's a wire kopek. That's the normal shape for these.
You said there's a date.There is. It's on the obverse. Lower right.
There's just a bunch of letters there. And a horse. I think.Yes, that's the date. Well, not the horse, obviously.
I kind of guessed it wasn't the horse.Okay. So that digit that looks like a P, it's a hundred...
Wait, you said it's 1599. What's a hundred doing there? And since when a hundred is a digit in the first place?You'll see.
Okay. So if that's a hundred, then these two letters to the left of it must mean fifteen...What? No, that's not part of the date at all. That's the mintmark. It means Pskov.
Then where the rest of the date is? Tnere's nothing else.Well, not on the coin, obviously. I checked the catalogue, and that mint only made one date for that ruler. There should be a seven just right of this...
A seven.Yes, a seven. It would look like a 3, if it was there, anyway.
Since when there's a seven
in the date 1599? And since when does a seven look like a 3? And since when a hundred is a digit? And...Oh, sorry. I thought I explained this.
You didn't, or I wouldn't be asking.Anyway, forget I said 1599, it will come up in a moment anyway.
Okay.So there's a hundred and a seven, which in total would mean a hundred and seven - you're still with me, right?
Yes...Okay, so the people who made this coin thought that of course it was obvious what the millenium is. I mean,
of course everyone knows that it's seven thousand, right?
I can imagine they would've thought that, yes.So they didn't put the seven thousand on the coin, but together with the 107 they did put, that makes this the year...
7107, right?Yes, 7107. And it's a bit complicated to explain, so I'll just say that this is 1599 in the normal calendar.
That was a bit anticlimactic.Sorry.
...And I'm also sorry for this little bit of self-dialogue, but I just felt like writing something like that.
In any case, Boris Fedorovich - you can kind of see this on the reverse - Godunov, Tsar of Russia, 7107 AM (1599 AD), wire kopek. Pskov mint.
I actually forgot the specific catalog reference, but suffice to say it was the only date Pskov mint made for Boris Godunov. Or the only with those dies, anyway.
Also sorry for the photo quality. This photo was made for the "alphabetic ancients" thread; I wanted to post the coin for B day, and I didn't have anything better than a ch*rping
webcam to make the photo with.
Hey,
you try to make a photo of a tiny irregular coin with a webcam. I'm surprised that it actually came out legibly.
(But just for the record: yes, as far as I can recall, the rest of the date wasn't really visible in hand either. [I hadn't seen the coin in years, so I'm not very confident.] This isn't just the photo quailty.)
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Posted 06/09/2016 6:21 pm
