Exciting Coins Recently Submitted, ECRS 10
Venezuela 2 reales, Abbasid dinar, a Mystery for you, Pine Tree shilling, Antiochus stater
For your collecting enjoyment, check out these five coins that were recently submitted to our Q&A coin forum. There are some beautiful specimens here! Feel free to answer some of the questions people ask about their coins. You can help!
First, take a look at this unusual coin from Venezuela. Do you recognize it? I had never seen one before.
It is clearly of Spanish origin, and it probably carries the 2 reales denomination. But what is the date? It must be 18x4 or 184x, where “x” is an unknow digit. A smart reader named Andi identified the coin for Pedro, the inquirer. Andi wrote:
Well, Pedro, you have a silver coin of the Province of Caracas, minted in the first 2 decades of the 19th century, during the war of independence of Venezuela, led by general Simón Bolivar “El Libertador.” Both armed forces in that conflict, royalists & republicans, minted these coins. The denomination is 2 reales and it is of the “cob” type, which were largely minted in all Spanish colonies in the Americas, in the previous 2 centuries. “Cob” coins have, as yours, irregular shapes, and that is normal.
Andi asserts that the coin is dated 1814. But, of course, the important question is “How much is it worth?” These coins, in the condition shown, catalog at about $400 US dollars. So, very roughly, a knowledgeable collector would pay about $300 for the coin, and a dealer would pay about $200
Second, we have a gorgeous gold dinar from the Abbasid Caliphate, which was the third caliphate to succeed Muhammad, the Islamic prophet. The Abbasid Caliphate was named after its founder Abbas ibn Abdul-Muttalib (566–653 AD), Muhammad's uncle. The coin was submitted by a guy named Mohammed. It is a $350 coin.
I’m no expert, but I think the first Kalimah appears on the front: i.e., the first statement of faith of Muslim people: “There is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is the messenger of Allah.”
Our third “coin” is a challenge for you, dear reader. Can you identify this piece? It’s been on the forum for 3 weeks and no one has come up with an ID. It’s a real stumper!
Clearly, this is not a coin. It might be considered a token or medal or a piece of jewelry, but the pattern and inscriptions are intriguing and coin-like. For inscriptions I think I see AOU, AOEA, ROMA, STM, AVC, AVZ, MPA, GGGG, AEOUA, AEOUATT, LLECACOC. What do you see? What do they mean? There is a repeated symbol that looks like an upper-case A, with its crossbar extended and raised. And, for sure, the flying A and the “seeing eye” grab your rapt attention! Any ideas? Everyone’s befuddled!
Perhaps you know what this is. Or, perhaps you have a guess. If you can shed some light on this piece, please reply to this email, or make and entry in the comments, or respond to the owner directly on this page. You’ll have to log in to make a comment or respond directly.
Questions about our fourth specimen often appear on the Q&A forum because these coins are so valuable and so widely counterfeited. People find one of the counterfeits in their junk collection, and they end up posting it with the usual “What is it worth?” question. Some people are smart enough to ask “Is it real?” before asking “What’s it worth?” Good move!
It is a Massachusetts pine tree shilling. A genuine coin is shown above. There are similar coins with oak trees and willow trees, but the pine tree shilling is best known.
In early New England, corn, pelts, bullets, and wampum were often used in lieu of coins. In 1652, the British Court ordered the first metallic currency struck in New England: silver threepence (annotated III), sixpence (VI), and shilling (XII), lagging the Spaniards who had already established a mint in Mexico City more than 100 years earlier.
Typical values for authentic New England coinage start around $500 US dollars for well-worn specimens and climb into the tens of 1000s of dollars for scarce and well-preserved pieces.
If you search the Internet for these coins, you will find oodles of replica coins and almost no genuine articles. The fakes sell for a few dollars. If you find something “too good to be true,” rest assured, it is. This page shows a comparison of real and fake coins, and gives precise weights for genuine coins.
Of all the New England coinage submitted to our site, I remember one which had a decent chance of being genuine. You can see its 2-year old post at this link.
Back in the 1970s an act of the US Congress made it illegal to produce replica coins without affixing the word COPY prominently on the piece. If you have a coin with the word COPY, you know, well, it is a copy. The problem comes when unscrupulous counterfeiters produce pieces without the COPY annotation. Some of the fakes are quite good, and, since pattern details on genuine coins vary greatly, a “normal” numismatist is not able to authenticate a New England coin. Special expertise, and years of experience, are necessary to do that.
Fifth, feast your eyes on this amazing gold stater of Antiochus I Soter, a Greek king of the Seleucid Empire. Antiochus succeeded his father Seleucus I Nicator in 281 BC and reigned during a period of instability.
The coin in my picture is absolutely dazzling. Most collectors enjoy improving their collections, swapping out inferior coins for superior, but this one will never be swapped out! It sold for $14000 during a 2020 auction.
The Greek god Apollo appears on the reverse, seated to left, testing an arrow in his right hand, and holding the tip of bow in his left. The inscriptions read BAΣIΛEΩΣ (monarch, king, emperor) and ANTIOXOY (Antiochus). The bow, arrow and sitting stone (the omphalos) indicate that this is Apollo Delphios, i.e., Apollo seated in his temple at Delphi, Greece. According to ancient measurements, Delphi was the center of the universe, and the “omphalos” or “navel” of the earth was located in Apollo's temple.
With that as background, a guy named Fast Link (or is it a girl?) sent us a picture of his Antiochus stater. Fast Link’s stater is pretty, but it has major problems, and those problems lower the value substantially. You can see Fast Link’s stater at this link.