need help from experts in crusader era coinage

coachleonard · June 5, 2010 8:40AM

I have a baffler....it's a small hammered copper coin with a crude imitation design of a medieval Venice soldo: Dodge on one side, Dodge Lion on the other...but the lion looks more like a crab. I would say it almost has to be an arabic imitation of a Venetian silver soldo that filtered over during the Crusades. And yet I have never seen or heard of any other such imitations. Anybody have any thoughts?

Sapyx · June 5, 2010 2:00PM

The earliest Arab-Islamic coins are imitations of Byzantine coins, but I'm not aware of any Arab imitations of Venetian coins; by the time the Venetians came on the scene, the Arabs had their own silver coin, the Islamic dirham, which was esteemed throughout the Islamic world; copies of Venetian coins would have been redundant there.

"Crude copies" of Venetian coins would most likely have originated in the Christian states the Venetians traded with. Venetian coinage was common throughout the eastern Mediterranean, and many smaller states, especially those that relied heavily on Venetian trade and protection, copied Venetian coin designs, with varying degrees of precision. The Principality of Achaea, for example, struck imitation soldini in the mid-1300s. The Serbs and Bulgars also struck coins derived from Venetian and/or Byzantine designs (Venetian coinage being ultimately Byzantine-inspired, too).

Pics mght help.

coachleonard · June 5, 2010 3:00PM

I will try and dig the coin out to make pics...i had pics on my hard drive at one time, arrrgggh. But i guess i never thought about eastern europe imitations.

ColinCMR · June 7, 2010 1:01PM

this sounds interesting! pics would be great!

Aethelred · June 8, 2010 12:15PM

Without photos.....

need help from experts in crusader era coinage

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