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Indo-Greek: Menander I (ca 160-140 BC) AE square dichalkon

Started by THCoins, May 31, 2014, 06:37:53 PM

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THCoins

The reign of indo-greek ruler Menander has provided us with a large number of different coin types. Especially the silver drachms of Menander have had plenty of attention in previous threads.
There is however also a wide array of Menander bronze coinage which is less often seen. An exeption is the square Elephant/Club type, which has gotten some attention in the past. The obverse in the majority of Menander square units shows a helmeted bust of Athena. Unfortunately, commercially available types are often crudely excecuted and usually quite worn.

The coin below i bought mainly for the nice Athena obverse. She wears a Beotian helmet, similar to that on some of the Menander drachms and previous Eukratides coinage. The legend is the usual "Basileos Soteros Menandrou" in Greek.
The reverse shows a winged Nike standing right, with palmleaf over her shoulder and holding a wreath. This side has suffered from bronze disease and cleaning.

AE Dichalkous, 18mm, 5.33 gr, Bop-32

PeaceBD

I find Menander's bronze coinage very interesting. The variety and beauty of these can be very captivating even for the beginner as there are some types which are easily available for a modest price. The beauty of your coin lies in the fine execution of Athena's portrait on the obverse. We can just imagine how impressive these coins would have been when they were first minted.

THCoins

I am glad you also find this type of coinage appealing. I hope that by showing some once in a while i can get more people enthusiastic. (But not to much, as i don't mind collecting a niche where prices are still very low compared to mainstream Greek and Roman coinage  :))
The refinement of the portraiture on this one indeed can compete with the silver coinage. I try to sellect these for appealing features in part of the details. I don't mind if the coin overall is a bit scruffy. Since photographing, i did tidy the surface a bit to get rid of the spottiness on the edges. In hand looks a bit nicer now.

Figleaf

Today, I chanced upon this quote from Samuel Pepys:

We met with Mr. Slingsby, that was formerly a great friend of Mons. Blondeau, who shewed me the stamps of the King's new coyne; which is strange to see, how good they are in the stamp and bad in the money for lack of skill to make them. - 19th February 1661

One of the great problems of hammered coins is that they require great skill. I have hammered coins myself and can attest to that. The hammer blow must be just the right strength, it must land horizontally and both dies need to be horizontal and must have even wear. It's difficult enough to make even one good coin, let alone a large number in a long working day among many working days doing exactly the same thing.

The same thing is true for cast coins. The mould needs to close well and in the right place, the metal temperature must be just right (which is pretty hot) and if you want to avoid trapped air, casting is an exhaustingly precise job amid fumes and the risk of spilling hot metal on yourself.

Hammered and cast coins in general do not do enough justice to the die maker. A collector who appreciates one exceptionally fine side, does.

Peter
An unidentified coin is a piece of metal. An identified coin is a piece of history.

THCoins

That's a nice observation from 250 years ago ! And i think it's true. However, part of the skill of the die maker probably also lies in knowing the limitations of the production technique. And it was not that bad either. I have many indo-greek coins with still perfectly readable tiny legends.
But even if i could choose between an overall very fine coin and one with a great portrait on a mediocre coin, i would tend to choose the latter. For i think it is a psychological truth that beauty is better perceived if it is contrasted with something less perfect.

Figleaf

Quote from: THCoins on September 03, 2014, 02:22:29 PM
However, part of the skill of the die maker probably also lies in knowing the limitations of the production technique.

Maybe, maybe not. In general, we know little of the die sinkers. I know that the Byzantines liked to have their dies made by famous sculptors and (later) Byzantine coins are really bad in execution, certainly much worse than contemporary icons and church pieces.

Quote from: THCoins on September 03, 2014, 02:22:29 PM
I have many indo-greek coins with still perfectly readable tiny legends.

As your coin above proves, it is not impossible to make nice hammered coins. With some experience and full concentration, I could hammer good coins too. It's just very difficult to do so professionally, especially when routine, boredom, muscle cramp and especially hurrying creep in. Minters were paid by the piece in the 16th century. That is not a recipe for a good coin.

For those reasons, I agree that good (well centred, well struck, good planchet) hammered coins, even if it's only one side, are something special that's worthwhile.

Peter
An unidentified coin is a piece of metal. An identified coin is a piece of history.

THCoins

QuoteFor those reasons, I agree that good (well centred, well struck, good planchet) hammered coins, even if it's only one side, are something special that's worthwhile.

And in that we do think alike !

PeaceBD

A very good discussion. I was able to dig out a few pictures of some outstanding Menander coppers from my picture archive. I save pictures and info of all these beautiful pieces when I come across them. When I saw some of these pics for the first time I seriously doubted their authenticity. Let me know what you guys think.

Not my coins and pictures are property of CNG USA.

THCoins

I think the authenticity of these coins is very hard to judge merely from the photo's.
What i can say is that the first two coins have been seriously tooled. The surfaces are smoothed far to much to my liking. But i do not know the condition of the coin before. I do not like them because they look artificial.
The last coin looks better. However, from previous experience i am inclined to say that also this surface has at least been repatinated. The surface structure to me is fishy.

To illustrate my point here first another CNG sale photo:
A bit rough surfaces, but quite nice for these indo-scythian coppers. When arriving parts of the surface were flaking of. I brushed the coin with a little oil. Then a few letters of the legend fell off. The second picture shows what the coin really looked like after a few second dip in acetone. The brown stuf is a remnant of the synthetic putty which made up almost the entire coin surface. CNG reacted in an appropriate manner to this finally, but i was quite disappointed.

Vajrapani

WOW truly appalling! As if tooling and re-patination weren't bad enough, 'they' (whomever are responsible) have fabricated almost the entire coin design with that putty! However, it does seem increasing common and acceptable (looking at prices realised) for these Indo Greek bronzes to be touched up in some way. I myself have bought bronzes in the past with suspect patinas just to acquire the coin type with a good strike. 

Vajrapani

I am trying to share some coins with you all but once again my attempts have been foiled by the restrictive max file size! I use an SLR and edit the pics in photoshop and I have found it impossible to shrink them lower than 300-odd-KB. Even then, the quality and detail is incredibly low. Any trick to this shrinking game chaps?

THCoins

Fortunately tooling is usually not so bad. But this may serve as a warning.

I do not use photoshop. but the general steps in editing your photo's to become suitable for the internet are:
- Use a trim tool to clip the part of your picture with the coin to remove excess background.
- Reduce the pixelsize of your clipped picture. Generally there is a "resize proportionally" option. Then you just have to set the desired heigh or width in pixels. I usually use a height 350 or 300.
- Save the reduced size picture as jpeg. Among the save option there usually is a slider to set the quality. I usually set this to about 85 %.
If you can't manage with Photoshop. Use one of the easier, freely available photo-editing programs. I am a fan of IrfanView, freely downloadable, easy and lots of options.

Figleaf

Quote from: THCoins on September 04, 2014, 09:34:35 AM
Among the save option there usually is a slider to set the quality. I usually set this to about 85 %.

This one is the key. You will see no difference on screen between a 1200 dpi pic and a 300 dpi pic, because most screens can't even reach 300 dpi, let alone 1200 dpi. See the "photography" board for more info.

Peter
An unidentified coin is a piece of metal. An identified coin is a piece of history.

PeaceBD

Wow! It is disgusting to see such tampering with these coins. This is why I have mostly stayed away from these bronzes. Tooling , smoothing and surface conditioning can be mostly detected with lots of experience but something like this hard to spot even for the experts. I am glad CNG finally made it right but I understand that the loss of the coin which you look forward to adding to your collection is always disheartening. If you look through CNG archives you will find a lot of coins with such surfaces.
One of the Bactrian coins I have always wanted is the tri-chalkon of Demetrios with the elephant head. But with these finding a nice specimen which has not been tooled, smoothed or otherwise messed with has been really difficult.
Another area which comes to mind is Kushan Gold coins. How many of these are doctored with putty etc ?

THCoins

I am not so afraid about fillers used on gold. There usually is no reason to do that because it does not corrode. Filled holes are generally easy to spot. Being a soft metal people may be tempted to accentuate worn details though.

The biggest problem are the bronzes on which we are accustomed to dark patinas. You can't see what's underneath. Over the last year i have tended to buy overcleaned (but not overtooled) bronze coins. Seeing the bare copper is not pretty, but will darken over time, and you can see far better what you've got.
After my sobering experience, i believe CNG had a word with one of their consignors, for indeed it was likely not the only one doctored in this fashion. Since this time i also saw a specific statement in the description with some similar specimen that surfaces may have been restored and re-patinated.
The Demetrios Tri-chalkon is quite typical. i only have a very corroded one. I saw an upcoming auction where a good one is expected to make 700 euros. That's a bit to much for me.

Below an example of a recent aquisition. At first sight it may look ghastly. But this is a coin that has nothing to hide. It has been stripped naked (not by me) to battle corrosion and exfoliation of the superficial layer. But part of the details below are beautifull. This coin will probably benefit from some subtle plastic surgery. Until i have time for that it is waxed to keep it stable in this condition.
(AE 22 mm, 8.83 gr, Bop-19)