California Goldish But That Reverse?!? | Ottoman-American

The "squiggly side" is an imitation of an Ottoman gold coin from the 1800s. "Right way up" is the pic at top left. The original coin said, in Arabic, "Struck in Constantinople" and the year in which it was struck; the Arabic is so badly written on this piece it's barely readable, and the "date" is just a bunch of meaningless arrowheads. Do a forum search for "imitation Ottoman" and you'll see quite a few like it, though I've never seen one with the US-derived portrait of Liberty on the reverse; "graven images" like that are very un-Islamic!

Imitation Ottoman gold coins were (and still are, I believe) very popular as jewllery pieces among the lower classes in Turkey and the Middle East, in a culture where women traditionally adorn themselves with coins on special occasions such as weddings. Or, if you prefer, think of it as a "belly-dancer coin".