Latest Pick-Up: Uncertain Early Arsacid King Tet

Thought I'd share my latest auction win, which becomes my 11th coin, and 7th tet, of the so-called "Uncertain Early Arsacid Kings" of Elymais, the term used for the anonymous kings who ruled Elymais between the late 1st century BC to early 2nd century AD. This period marked a dynastic change from the prior Kamnaskirid rulers of Elymais to a line of (probably) blood relatives of the Arsacids of Parthia. Formulization set in with these coins, and types are distinguishable only by small details like the number of anchor crossbars, and the presence or absence of the adjacent motifs: crescents/stars/rosettes/pellets. One of the fascinating things about coins from this period is the disconnect between the style of the obverse busts and the often remarkably degenerated reverse busts. Die engravers capable of these obverses clearly could have produced superior reverse portraits, and yet the convention was to render reverse busts as cartoonish - and sometimes even just as simplified, chicken-scratch line drawings.

The newbie is directly below, followed by a collage of my other tets from this particular period in Elymais, and then a collage of contemporaneous drachms that I own - note the drachms were always struck on very tight flans.