Can't make heads or toes of this. Parthian? Nabatean? Greek?

[Pellinore]

This was one of a little lot of Parthian bronzes. But the portrait looks female, and it has more relief than the usual Nabatean coins. Does it ring a bell to anybody?

13.5 x 11.5 mm, 1.68 gr.

-- Paul



and another aspect of the reverse:

[derek]

I cant find it. But the cointype makes me think of Chach, silk road kingdoms. See the thread on cointalk.com /threads/lost silk road kingdoms  chach

[Pellinore]

Thanks for your interest! Do you mean this one: https://www.cointalk.com/threads/lost-silk-road-kingdoms-chach.297881/#post-2765242
I can't see anything like this coin in it. The Sogdian coins a have different fabric, they have less relief and sharpness. Some of them probably were cast. My coin clearly was struck and dates from about 100 BC-100 AD.
And that's not a tamgha on the reverse - here's another picture of the reverse.

-- Paul

[Figleaf]

I plowed through Mitchiner twice without finding anything like it. Because I once saw a head looking left on the reverse, I may still have missed it, though. I learned from the ploughing throughing that coins with a head on either side do not occur very often, but when they occur, the two heads will look to the same side. I now think it's not a head. Could it be that this piece has once been attached to something and I see traces of that?

I also paid attention to the nice, well defined portrait and got into trouble there too. The only good thought I had was a dud. I have seen lips defined like this on Sassanian coins. Early heads are finely detailed and tend to have elaborate crowns. This portrait is cruder, but more forceful than those early coins, but when such portraits became fashionable, the flans were far more regular.

The above won't advance thinking about your piece, but I didn't want you to think nobody cared.

Peter

[Kamnaskires]

An interesting mystery. If I were to venture a guess, it might be that it's a contemporary imitation of a Nabataean issue, perhaps Aretas IV. The reverse is too off-centered and nondescript to be of much help (at least to me). But even official Nabataean issues seemed to sometimes allow for a diversity of engraved representations of rulers - and, of course, sometimes those representations were pretty wacky. Here's a sampling of Aretas IV busts, the lower right coin being imitative (unofficial).

[Figleaf]

The portrait side of the OP coin seems to fit Kamnaskires' coin upper row extreme left quite well - though I am not at all sure there is a character or something in front of the face on the OP coin. What's its reverse like?

Peter

[Pellinore]

Interesting, and sharply seen by Figleaf! And thanks, I didn't know Aretas IV had these nice portraits.
-- Paul

[Pellinore]

And thanks for the portrait selection by Kamnaskires. That, and the coins obverses on Vcoins, point us clearly to Aretas IV. The reverse - I didn't find it exactly, but the style and fabric is family of these coins. So! Aretas IV or an imitation, it will go into the books like that.

-- Paul