Here's one for the ID gurus

Blackhawk · March 20, 2007 1:51PM

This is about 10mm in diameter and appears to be silver or billion. I don't know if it's oriented correctly (I kinda doubt it). Any guesses?

Sapyx · March 20, 2007 2:15PM

Top pic is upside down. Bottom pic... your guess is as good as mine.

No idea on the ID yet, other than the broad "Islamic" designation; if I find something and no-one else has found it, I'll post again.

Blackhawk · March 20, 2007 2:23PM

I flipped the top image to make identification easier.

Well...I thought that I flipped it.

dcamp78 · March 20, 2007 4:57PM

Reminiscent of an Indian Princely States coin...

spoon · March 20, 2007 8:17PM

Odd... the one Islamic area I'd rule out would be India based on style. I can't seem to place it right now though. It's not Umayyad or Abbasid... not Ottoman or Persian (at least I doubt it). I'd wager it's somewhere in between, but that's still a terribly large range. And my usual caveat: I could be completely wrong, even on what little I said.

Does it have some thickness to it? The Ottoman akce can be around that diameter, but those are usually wafer thin.

Sapyx · March 20, 2007 11:14PM

The script looks like old-style, Kufic script, as used on the earliest Caliphate coins, but the layout isn't Umayyad or Abbasid. Also just noticed the "silver or billon" comment in the OP. To me, that says "Central Asia, sometime 1000-1400 AD". Something like this late Ghaznavid one on Zeno.ru.

Blackhawk · March 21, 2007 1:33PM

There were a jumble of hand written slips in the box of ancient coins - from your descriptions I've narrowed down the options some and hope one will match up. Here's what one slip says...

Azerbaijan 9th - 11th century AD Silver Hoard Amins of Abd Allah Islamic Album 1495

Does this make any sense to anyone?

Sapyx · March 21, 2007 6:02PM

AH. That does indeed help. "Album 1495" is a reference to the catalogue "A Checklist of Islamic Coins" by Stephen Album. This be the coin in question.

According to Album, the small silver coins are called "damma", and worth 1/6th of a standard dirham. As for the date, the "sequence of rulers...has not yet been reconstructed". so, it's sometime between 800 and 1100. The ruler's name is "Amir Abd'Allah"; "amir" is the title, like "king". The dynasty is known as the "Habbarids", and they ruled the territory known as Sind, in the southeast corner of modern Pakistan. So, "Indian States" is accurate enough.

Don't know where the guy who wrote your card out got "Azerbaijan" from, though.

Here's one for the ID gurus

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