More help with unknown coins please!! jetons, ancient, magician?

ormandh

Here are a few of my headscratchers. I love these things, but I do not like the fact that I do not know how to find info on them. Any help will greatly be appreciated. -Dan

Magician's token?





Brazil?





Jeton?

lordmarcovan

Your first "magician's token" actually appears to be a silver ancient coin, perhaps Sassanian. I'll let the more seasoned in such matters chime in with the attribution.

I agree with you that the globe on the second piece screams "Brazil", but beyond that, your guess is as good as mine.

The third one looks like a 17th century piece to me. I believe Sweden had a series of them with various mythological deities on them. (Maybe there were actually coins, too- I forget). Anyway, I have seen a few with various gods on them, and the names in Latin. You've got Neptune on one side and Hercules & Pallas on the other. I wonder what the "H.K." is. Probably a mintmark or maker's initials. Interesting.

josemartins

The second one is a Portuguese "conto para contar" (counter token) struck during Manuel I kingdom (1495-1521), ref. E1 CC.11 from Gomes catalog if i'm not mistaken.

Jose

coachleonard

That 1495-1521 counter must be the scarcest piece of the three-- i've never seen a portuguese counter before! Didn't know Portugal struck counter pieces way back then. The last piece is a jeton, probably mid-1500's to early 1600's and i'm thinking, a Netherlands piece.

ormandh

What exactly is a counter piece? Where would I find a reference for them?

#1 is an Islamic piece from the 1st-3rd centuries, or later. I was able to find some that were very similar, but not exactly. -Dan

coachleonard

counters are also known as 'jetons." their original purpose was as counting aids on a counting board (kind of like beads on an abacus), but later, they were also popularly used as a kind of gambling money. They first appeared around the 1300's and are used up to today, but the peak of their popularity was the 1500's-1600's. They were really big in england, france, germany and the netherlands. If you're looking for reference material, it's pretty much all european (unless someone knowns different) and not written in english-- french, german, dutch. In other words, very hard to pinpoint values on these.

lordmarcovan

C'mon, Coach- you're savvier on the ancients than I am- what's the Sassanian (or whatever it is) piece at the top? (Or is it Parthian?) I'll say Sassanian. First half of the first millennium, maybe? 500s-600s AD?

Can you tell I'm making random stabs in the dark, here?

lordmarcovan

Boy, I think I'm gettin' warm.

Check out the first (top left) coin on this page.

One outta three ain't bad.

Of course I haven't attributed it, beyond confirming my vague notion that it's almost surely a sixth- or seventh-century Sassanian piece.

I'm just proud to have gotten that far with it.

harasha

I briefly took a look at my Sasanian reference work (haven't looked at it in years) and I also was thinking Khusro II or thereabouts.
However, I am troubled by the imprecise nature of the crown, below the wings. I was thinking perhaps it was a Tabaristan piece, latter half of the 8th century.
Of course, I cannot tell if the piece is a dirhem or a half dirhem. I do not believe that dirhems were minted in Tabaristan. A dirham, or drachm, probably should be between 30 and 32 mm.

I will attempt to attach images, once I reduce the pic size to below 50 kb.

From Steve Album:





From Pegasi:

josemartins

<< <i>That 1495-1521 counter must be the scarcest piece of the three-- i've never seen a portuguese counter before! Didn't know Portugal struck counter pieces way back then. The last piece is a jeton, probably mid-1500's to early 1600's and i'm thinking, a Netherlands piece. >>



There are portuguese counter tokens struck from Afonso III (1248-1279) until Henrique I (1578-1580) and its reference book is the same as the general portuguese coins, the catalogue value given for ormandh's piece is 30 Euro in F but they are usually sold cheaper than "book" prices.
You're right, they are quite scarce, but almost nobody collects them by type, maybe 2/3 people...

Jose

ormandh

Thanks guys! Very helpful information. This hobby is really research intensive!!! -Dan

pendragon1998

<< <i>What exactly is a counter piece? Where would I find a reference for them?

#1 is an Islamic piece from the 1st-3rd centuries, or later. I was able to find some that were very similar, but not exactly. -Dan >>




It's not possible to have an islamic piece from the 1st - 3rd centuries, is it? Islam emerged in the 7th century. Of course, they have a different calendar, don't they?

ormandh

I was wrong it was the 5th and 6th centuries. -Dan

ormandh

LM you hit the nail on the head!! Good job!! -Dan

sumnom

I know nothing about these peices but I just wanted to say that I really enjoy this kind of thread here on the darkside. Onward!

ormandh

I do to. It is funny how much expert advice you get from this group of collectors. It is just too bad that all of the information that is collective on this forum is not in one man's mind. If that were the case he/she would be an icon. Unless, there really is someone on this board with this wisdom.

I have to say, this is the main reason that I collect darkside material. I will never run out of things to pursue that I have little knowledge of.

-Dan

lordmarcovan

<< <i>LM you hit the nail on the head!! Good job!! >>

Thanks. I was hammering in the dark. Good thing I didn't hit my thumb, instead!

Sapyx

#1 is definitely Sassanian. Grifterrec is the best reference site I know of for Sassanian coins. It includes a handy-dandy Date translation table and a mintmark guide.

Using these resources, I believe I've translated your coin to be from the Ardashir-Khurra mint (AR mintmark), during the 6th year of King Khusro II. Example from Zeno.ru.

I have to say, though,that that's the funkiest portrait I've ever seen on a Sassanian coin. Very mediaeval-looking. Where'd his beard go? Heck, never mind the beard, where's his chin?!?


Edited to add: I believe "Year 6 of Khusro II" translates to 595 AD.