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Posted 02/03/2023 4:01 pm
I bought this coin sometime in 2021, partly deliberately to shore up (what I expected to be) the upcoming period of How Far Back Can We Go, partly just because (much like bd251) I just wanted to get some dated 15th century coins and Islamic was what I could afford.
I would probably have gotten more, but they were expensive [or so I naively thought at the time - we're talking $10ish], there weren't a lot that looked like they had dates, and this was by far the nicest of the examples.
I kinda assumed that whoever labelled the 2x2 probably knew what they were doing, but I couldn't see any digits, and Zeno comparisons weren't very helpful because I couldn't tell the difference between the dates they were giving and none of them matched mine.
(IIRC there's still no examples of this particular date on Zeno.)
The nice folk of Walking Back By Decades, where I posted the coin in October 2021, weren't very sure what to do with it either, and that was where it stayed until recently.
Fast forward to December 2022, when another bump produces a compilation of remaining dates, and I realize that my coin - if its date is correct - might solve the main sticking point between 1460 and somewhere in the 1430s.
At which point I do what I really should have done all along but somehow didn't think of before: look it up in the hyper-detailed Zlobin catalog of Shirvanshah issues (which is mostly - though not completely - available in Google Books).
And there it was, indeed listed under 856...
Turns out the date was written in words, in the middle area of the side without the flower shape (shifted to upper right on first pic). Of course I couldn't find the numbers - there weren't any to find in the first place!
My coin's middle area exactly matches their picture for (8)56, as screenshotted here. So yeah, it's 856.
Updated attribution:
Shirvanshahs, Derbendi dynasty
Khalilullah I (1418-1465 AD) [Zeno cat. 5961]
AR tanka (tanga), Shamakhi mint
dated AH (8)56 = 1452 AD
Zlobin 034.4; cf. Zeno 19772 (different date)
not on Numista (yet)
Side-note, it's mildly ironic that the coin from 1453 was posted on page 452, but the coin from 1452 ended up on page 453...
I would probably have gotten more, but they were expensive [or so I naively thought at the time - we're talking $10ish], there weren't a lot that looked like they had dates, and this was by far the nicest of the examples.
I kinda assumed that whoever labelled the 2x2 probably knew what they were doing, but I couldn't see any digits, and Zeno comparisons weren't very helpful because I couldn't tell the difference between the dates they were giving and none of them matched mine.
(IIRC there's still no examples of this particular date on Zeno.)
The nice folk of Walking Back By Decades, where I posted the coin in October 2021, weren't very sure what to do with it either, and that was where it stayed until recently.
Fast forward to December 2022, when another bump produces a compilation of remaining dates, and I realize that my coin - if its date is correct - might solve the main sticking point between 1460 and somewhere in the 1430s.
At which point I do what I really should have done all along but somehow didn't think of before: look it up in the hyper-detailed Zlobin catalog of Shirvanshah issues (which is mostly - though not completely - available in Google Books).
And there it was, indeed listed under 856...
Turns out the date was written in words, in the middle area of the side without the flower shape (shifted to upper right on first pic). Of course I couldn't find the numbers - there weren't any to find in the first place!
My coin's middle area exactly matches their picture for (8)56, as screenshotted here. So yeah, it's 856.
Updated attribution:
Shirvanshahs, Derbendi dynasty
Khalilullah I (1418-1465 AD) [Zeno cat. 5961]
AR tanka (tanga), Shamakhi mint
dated AH (8)56 = 1452 AD
Zlobin 034.4; cf. Zeno 19772 (different date)
not on Numista (yet)
Side-note, it's mildly ironic that the coin from 1453 was posted on page 452, but the coin from 1452 ended up on page 453...
I wouldn't have the slightest idea how to research a coin like that.
