How Far Back Can We Go? Sixth Edition! Ended At 1380 Waiting On 1379

I almost said that this is 849 but I looked it up, and indeed apparently their 5 looks like ε (which is of course a later 4 shape) while their 4 looks like (mirrored) φ.
(On Ottoman coins of that period the 5 is a B shape. There's a lot of variety in these early Eastern Arabic digits. Unfortunately I've never seen a good historical comparison.)

Then there's 6... I agree, this is probably a 9 but I'd want to see it in hand before trying to guess anything for sure from those pics.

Ok yep. Here is a Schilling from the German Bishopric of Würzburg that is datable to 1454 AD. The obv legend is MON ARGENT PRINCIPVM while the rev says SANCTVS KILIANVS. It is attributed as Ehwald 5607.




Too bad their aren't any good papers written on saints on medieval coins as that sounds like a fascinating topic to me.

Now that you say it, I can also see it possibly being a 6 with weird shadows due to lighting. We'll see when I have it in hand.

I have found the comparison section of the Arabic numerals Wikipedia article to be somewhat helpful https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_numerals

Here's the relevant screen clip from that article.


I can tell you what I've observed from looking at a lot of coins. When learning to read dates on these Islamic era coins, the 4 and 5 were what really threw me off. As you said, the 5 here looks like the modern eastern Arabic 4 you might expect. The 5 will also appear in the orientation where it looks like a w, sometimes with the tales elongated and curved somewhat inward. If you look at the Persian or Urdu digits, you will see how this is a 5.

The 4 is often depicted as you described, but can also look like my example for AH864, differentiated from a squared-off 2 by the outward curved tail. I've also seen variations in between (loop with the tail). These styles differ even from the modern 4s above. Until very recently, I hadn't seen the Persian style of 4 on a coin from this period. I can't recall the exact coin (I think I saved the reference. I'll check later) but I remember the date as 9*4.

The other 5 related confusion comes with how 0 is written. From modern script, you would expect 0 to be a dot, but I have mostly seen it as an open o, which could be confused for a modern 5.

I've only very recently become confident in reading the dates, so I haven't yet paid attention to whether the script variations are regional, regnal, or at the discretion of the die maker.

Again, this is mostly just observation from looking at a lot of coins and confirming with other dated examples. I am not an expert.

It's also unfortunate that it seems the forum does not support the Arabic characters

Another day, another drop!

Excellent!

Excellent!