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Archaic Coin ? (Id: Lydia Electrum)

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Sweden
6 Posts
 Posted 12/04/2008  2:41 pm Show Profile   Bookmark this topic Add Glasmastar to your friends list Get a Link to this Message Number of Subscribers
Hello
I have this little coin( 5mm diameter).
I wondering if it's an archaic coin and if someone know anything about it.

Best regards
Glasmastar

Archaic-Coin-?-Id:-Lydia-Electrum

Archaic-Coin-?-Id:-Lydia-Electrum
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IBGolden's Avatar
Canada
598 Posts
 Posted 12/04/2008  4:35 pm  Show Profile   Bookmark this reply Add IBGolden to your friends list Get a Link to this Reply
If it's gold, and that small, I was gonna say Fanham(India)...
but after looking at the upside down sailboat or rightside up wolf's head, and an almost counter stamp(gotta be small!)obverse(?) I dunno.

Maybe the distortion from the magnifier. And there are a huge variety(and I mean huge)of fanham's, but the design is rather un-fanham like. They usually have only a few discernible lines and dots.

I may be able to find some reference, but a country would really make that easier.
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KurtS's Avatar
United States
5318 Posts
 Posted 12/04/2008  6:29 pm  Show Profile   Bookmark this reply Add KurtS to your friends list Get a Link to this Reply
I'll put my bets on an origin west of India; there's something familiar about the design.
Which is to say, I don't really know...I hope you get an ID.
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Sap's Avatar
Australia
16868 Posts
 Posted 12/08/2008  07:20 am  Show Profile   Bookmark this reply Add Sap to your friends list Get a Link to this Reply
It looks like an archaic Greek coin to me. The very earliest coins from Lydia were electrum coins with this design, a lion's head on the obverse and an irregular punch-mark on the reverse; example on Wildwinds. 5mm is quite small, but many fractional coins were issued in this series that were small indeed.

Electrum is an alloy of silver and gold that occurred naturally in Lydia. If your coin is one of these, it should be a pale yellow-white in colour. I can't tell the colour of yours from the pic.

The primary measurement for these coins is weight, rather than diameter, because the diameter can vary quite a bit and many (like youts) are oval in shape. If you can get a weight in grams to 2 decimal places, that would help narrow down the identity.

If it definitely isn't electrum, there were several other Greek city-states in the Archaic period that issued silver coins of similar design; Knidos and Lindos are two I can spot just browsing through the catalogue, but tiny versions of these coins are much less commonly seen. If you know where it was found, that might help with the identification.
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
New Member
Sweden
6 Posts
 Posted 12/08/2008  10:13 am  Show Profile   Bookmark this reply Add Glasmastar to your friends list Get a Link to this Reply
Thank's a lot for your help

Best regards Glasmastar
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