Saudi Arabia Gold Guinea

GotTheBug

A while back I decided that I wanted to buy a little gold to sock away. U.S. bullion gold is highly sought after, but pretty boring if you ask me, so I decided to look for something out-of-the-ordinary. I bought this 1950 Saudi Arabia gold guinea raw at Sarasota Rare Coin Gallery and decided to have it graded (PCGS MS66). Does anyone know of a good source for translating Arabic writing into English?

coinkat

NIce image- excellent looking coin

Vasanti

Sapyx

@GotTheBug said:
Does anyone know of a good source for translating Arabic writing into English?

If you're interested in diving into Islamic coinage, I can recommend the book "Arabic coins and how to read them" by Richard Plant. An excellent written-for-Westerners guide to interpreting Arabic coins, from the mediaevals through to current. If you're feeling like re-living your school days, the book even assigns homework for you to do at the end of every chapter.

I've never understood why they call these coins "guineas". The coin's specifications are identical to the British sovereign, not the British guinea - the guinea was slightly heavier (8.35 grams, not 7.98). I'm guessing it's derived from the Arabic name of the denomination on the coin: "junayh", sometimes written "gunayh" as it is on Numista, where the above translation screenshots came from. But "junayh" is simply the Arabic word for "pound" (the Arabic for "British pound" would be "junayh al-Biritainiu"). The Arabic name for the modern republic of Guinea is "Ghinia", quite a different word.

GotTheBug

@Sapyx said:

@GotTheBug said:
Does anyone know of a good source for translating Arabic writing into English?

If you're interested in diving into Islamic coinage, I can recommend the book "Arabic coins and how to read them" by Richard Plant. An excellent written-for-Westerners guide to interpreting Arabic coins, from the mediaevals through to current. If you're feeling like re-living your school days, the book even assigns homework for you to do at the end of every chapter.

I've never understood why they call these coins "guineas". The coin's specifications are identical to the British sovereign, not the British guinea - the guinea was slightly heavier (8.35 grams, not 7.98). I'm guessing it's derived from the Arabic name of the denomination on the coin: "junayh", sometimes written "gunayh" as it is on Numista, where the above translation screenshots came from. But "junayh" is simply the Arabic word for "pound" (the Arabic for "British pound" would be "junayh al-Biritainiu"). The Arabic name for the modern republic of Guinea is "Ghinia", quite a different word.

Thanks for both of your informative posts. I'm not sure if I will be diving into Islamic coinage but the Numista reference is a reminder of a resource that I had totally forgotten about, so I appreciate the refresher on that. My world coin collecting, outside of Canada, has been limited and has been an occasional purchase of coins of great beauty or artistic merit, for the most part. It is a rabbit hole that I dare not enter, as I am prone to going off on tangents which I cannot afford....