The first coin - addenda

Reid Goldsborough wrote:

Thrace has had different boundaries throughout the
ages, and there's some disagreement over whether the Dacians to the
north of the Danube River were Thracian, and no doubt some Thracians
settled in Pantikapaion, but Pantikapaion was never considered in
ancient times a part of Thrace.


Arguable, but not important enough for me to do so.

I like some of the coins from Pantikapaion, particularly the bronzes
depicting Pan. The rulers of Pantikapaion also minted these Pan coins
in silver and gold, but they're very pricey. The bronzes are
affordable and very cool.


So, I take it you aren't so keen on the little Lion Obols from there?
They are usually pretty inexpensive / affordable. The ones where the
lions face is nicely centred carry a small premium (as usual with
ancients) but there shouldn't be that much difficulty in finding a
decent example.

Jim wrote:

Reid Goldsborough , having plonked God and Man, spends
countless electrons yet again, explaining how he goes back to read the thread
in Google to view exactly those creatures he sought to avoid in the first
place.

I just looked through the messages in this thread, through Google Groups, as a
little analysis, a little exercise.

Reid..........Does that make any sense to even a half wit like you?

ROTFLMAO!!
Does this constitute lying to yourself as well as the group?

Alan
'he plonked,then peeked'

Mike quoted:

"...de schatrijke koning van Lydia (ca. 690-652), waarrond heel wat mythen
bestonden [cf. Herodotos, 1, 8-15]..."


Bingo!

;-)




Anka Z
Co-president of the once thriving, but now defunct, Tommy John Fan Club.
Go, Lake County Captains!

Whooooosh.(sounds of low flying helicopters).

It must be a very small bingo `house'.

I bet you are about the only other person who might have actually
understood a word of that.

Personally I think Michael might have made his point in simple plain
language. Instead he is off on some pseudo intellectual trip that to me
is every bit as bad as he professes Reid to be and which at the same
time leaves him with an audience of one.

Just my cartwheel 2d worth.

Ian


Ankaaz wrote:
Mike quoted:

"...de schatrijke koning van Lydia (ca. 690-652), waarrond heel wat mythen
bestonden [cf. Herodotos, 1, 8-15]..."


Bingo!

;-)




Anka Z
Co-president of the once thriving, but now defunct, Tommy John Fan Club.
Go, Lake County Captains!

On Sun, 27 Jul 2003 19:55:07 +0100, Ian
wrote:

Arguable, but not important enough for me to do so.

Not arguable at all. Pantikapaion was not a part of Thrace. It was a
part of Skythia. There's a *misconception* out there in the minds of
many, like yours, that it was a part of Thrace because of the
shortcuts that numismatic catalogers have taken, lumping all coins to
the northeast of Greece/Macedonia in with Thracian coins and all those
to the northwest of Greece/Illyria in with Celtic coins, but if you
read the literature about ancient Thrace, you'll see that the borders
of Thrace never extended that far north.

So, I take it you aren't so keen on the little Lion Obols from there?
They are usually pretty inexpensive / affordable. The ones where the
lions face is nicely centred carry a small premium (as usual with
ancients) but there shouldn't be that much difficulty in finding a
decent example.

They're just not very distinctive, in my view. Not among the earliest
coins. Not among the most impressive lion coins. I like this
particular lion depiction, of the top of its head -- pretty menacing
-- but it's executed better in the coins of Samos, where it
originated, and later on in the coins of Rhegion, a Samos colony in
Italy.

--

Coin Collecting: Consumer Guide: http://rg.ancients.info/guide
Glomming: Coin Connoisseurship: http://rg.ancients.info/glom
Bogos: Counterfeit Coins: http://rg.ancients.info/bogos

Ian wrote:

Whooooosh.(sounds of low flying helicopters).

It must be a very small bingo `house'.

I bet you are about the only other person who might have actually
understood a word of that.

Personally I think Michael might have made his point in simple plain
language. Instead he is off on some pseudo intellectual trip that to me
is every bit as bad as he professes Reid to be and which at the same
time leaves him with an audience of one.

Just my cartwheel 2d worth.


To which you are, of course, entitled. There is a *lot* of
chain-yanking in a low key manner in RCC, due largely to the longevity
of the community and long memories for slights and tiffs (fully aware
that I am included).

Mike's point, as I saw it in 'Plain English' is "You cannot claim to
have exhaustively researched this issue when your research is limited to
sources in one language or translations of them. Here is a contrary
opinion you have not seen."

As to being elitist...yes there is an undercurrent of 'who out-snouts
whom' and another of 'I am plainer-than-thou' which is normally part of
any hobby anyway.

I expect to see just how egalitarian Ankaaz can be when I take her by
the elbow and ask for three hours of her time in choosing an ancient
Roman Bronze coin with a purchase price of less than a baseball ticket.
;-) I do know how to make horse puree, and eagerly anticipate the glaze
in her eyes when I say "But we haven't seen them *all* yet!"

Alan
'joins no club that would have him as a member'

On 27 Jul 2003 11:13:38 -0700, (High Plains
Writer) wrote:

As you know, this is an area of numismatics that I also have some
interest in. I have published articles on the origins of coinage in
several periodicals including the Classical Numismatic Group Quarterly
and The Numismatist. You can also find several works online -- for
instance, www.limunltd.com/numismatica/articles/
origins-of-coinage.html and also
http://www.coin-newbies.com/articles/origin.html. So, I have some
basis for suggesting that you look again at your presentation,
especially because you deliver this to "newbies" as an "educational"
page.

This is going to sound harsh. I'd suggest that your first article
wasn't rejected when it was because nobody wanted to publish you
fighting against the orthodoxy but because you didn't know the
background, didn't present all or even the most important of the
previous work that had been done in this area, hadn't done the basic
research. You talked about the "commercial" theory as if it was an
orthodoxy that everyone in the numismatic establishment believes when
there is no agreement at all, as I said previously here, about why
coins originated. You implied that everybody thinks that the earliest
coinage were made to facilitate trade when nobody who's doing work in
this area thinks this today, not since Colin Kraay convincingly
refuted this theory in the 1970s. You mentioned only one of the
scholars most respected doing work in this area, M. Price, ignoring E.
Robinson, S. Bolin, L. Weidauer, C. Kraay, and R. Wallace, not to
mention those who've done important work since you wrote this,
including P. Keyser and D. Clark, M. Cowell and K. Hyne, among others.

Your second article is better but still lightweight. You really need
to check out the holdings of the ANS, not just what some university
library near you has. The local university libraries around here,
including the University of Pennsylvania's, an Ivy League school with
a huge library, are sparse in their numismatic literature -- books and
journals -- compared with the ANS.

I always thought that Ernst Curtius was German. You cite him as
English.

You're right. My mistake. Encyclopaedia Britannica and various Web
sites confirm this. Thanks for pointing this out.

Also in German is perhaps the single most important work bearing
relevance to your interest: Probleme der frühen Elektronprägung by
Liselotte Weidauer. You do cite Weidauer on your site. However, you
have said in RCC that you do not read German. Therefore, I ask: is
this in fact a SECONDARY citation, a reference from a reference, as
opposed to a paper you actually have read and critically considered?

I have the relevant pages of her book, photocopied from the ANS, and
with the help of AltaVista's Bablefish picked up what I needed to
know. Her dating is considered all wrong, according to most, but her
attribution categories are useful, as are her plates (photos).

"Volgens Charles Seltman (bv. 1952, p. 28; 1955, p. 15-17) en andere
geleerden ontstond de munt ca. 690-685, onder Gyges, de schatrijke
koning van Lydia (ca. 690-652), waarrond heel wat mythen bestonden
[cf. Herodotos, 1, 8-15]. Ze namen evenwel niet de gehele
muntproductie in beschouwing zodat deze vroege datering door de meeste
geleerden wordt verworpen. Ook Liselotte Weidauer (1975) suggereerde
op basis van stijlonderzoek een datum ca. 685, maar stijl is steeds
een gevaarlijk criterium."

(My Dutch is pretty weak: "Following Charles Seltman.. and other
researchers assigned the coin ca. 690-685 from Gyges, the (pretender;
usurper) king of Lydia (ca 690-652), around whom are many myths
[Herodotus]. His name is known better than his coins so that this
question of dating even most researchers are uncertain. Also,
Liselotte Weidnaer (1975) suggests based on stylistic examination a
date c. 685, even though style is certainly a dangerous criterion."

This is the "early dating," refuted convincingly in the minds of most
(and mine) in 1951 when E.S.G. (Stanley) Robinson reinterpreted D.
Hogarth's archeological findings of 1904 and 1905 at the Temple of
Artemis at Ephesos. But not everyone agrees, as I point out on my
page, including L. Weidauer and D. Kagan.

You challenged me to offer up some other coin as "the first coin" and
to defend my claim. I must demur. I first published about the
origins of coinage in 1994. In the last eight years, I have read
much, seen more than a few coins both hands-on and in pictures,
written about them, etc., etc., and all I can say is "I don't know."

That is an honest answer. But the fact that you don't know, for sure,
shouldn't prevent you from theorizing. You do it enough otherwise.

--

Coin Collecting: Consumer Guide: http://rg.ancients.info/guide
Glomming: Coin Connoisseurship: http://rg.ancients.info/glom
Bogos: Counterfeit Coins: http://rg.ancients.info/bogos

Alan wrote:

"I do know how to make horse puree..."


Okay. I give up. Does "horse puree" go into the horse, or come out of it?
And what does this have to do with Roman Bronze coins, the price of baseball
tickets and elbows?


Anka
'can I go into the water up to my knees?'

Ankaaz wrote:

Alan wrote:

"I do know how to make horse puree..."

Okay. I give up. Does "horse puree" go into the horse, or come out of it?
And what does this have to do with Roman Bronze coins, the price of baseball
tickets and elbows?

Anka
'can I go into the water up to my knees?'

Horse Puree is an end product of conversations with Reid Goldsborough,
in which any equine remains will become molecular fragments in search of
an Author.

Alan
'Tootsie Fruitsie Ice Cream'

Snarf. All this witty reparte and not one person has a response to my
"Mystery Coin Reprise" message? HEP ME, SUMBUDDY, PLEEZE.

"Alan & Erin Williams" wrote in message
...
Ankaaz wrote:

Alan wrote:

"I do know how to make horse puree..."

Okay. I give up. Does "horse puree" go into the horse, or come out of
it?
And what does this have to do with Roman Bronze coins, the price of
baseball
tickets and elbows?

Anka
'can I go into the water up to my knees?'

Horse Puree is an end product of conversations with Reid Goldsborough,
in which any equine remains will become molecular fragments in search of
an Author.

Alan
'Tootsie Fruitsie Ice Cream'