An Owl for Anka

Ultimately, we all decide for ourselves what to believe. Personally, I
look to empirical evidence and logical constructs: you need facts and
explanations for them and those theories must remain tested by new
facts.

On Mar 12, 8:18 pm, Reid Goldsborough
wrote:
Another long post...
Here's one interesting part. Classical Owls, having this design, are
one of the few coin types in history in which there were official
plated specimens ...

The fact is that there were no officially-plated coins, ever. It has
happened that those in poliitcal power resort to "counterfeiting their
own currency." (Chiang kai-Shek did this, for instance.) However, it
has not been established that this was done in ancient times. (For
Roman coins, consider Michael H. Crawford's essay "Plated Coins--False
Coins" in Numismatic Circular, 1968.)

As I explained in my Celator article, the likely explanation for the
Eleusis Hoard is that is was created by radicals (democrats) who
temporarily held the Mint during a time of upheaval in Athens. These
coins have been die linked by their obvious style to the Emergency
Issue -Gold- Coins, an earlier stop-gap. Someone used the gold coin
dies to make these fakes. But they were always fakes, never anything
else but fakes and never the intentional emission of the
constitutional government of Athens.

Mr. Reid Goldsborough has asked for help translating numismatic works
in French. (He wants others to do the work for him, not help him with
his French.) In my Celator article, I examine the exact Classical
Greek text of two plays "The Frogs" and "The Council of Women." My
language skills are pretty good. Nothing in the puns, allusions,
sleights or tropes makes any hint that the Emergency Issue coins were
plated silver.

Rather, having these plated fakes in abundance, many people read into
the plays what they need to find in order to explain the plated fakes.

The Celator article quotes another Celator writer, Jim Hauck, who
provided the "Ask the Experts" column. Jim Hauck pointed out that
Athens took great care to design coins that were different from each
other. The gold "Owl" emergency coins -- and therefore the Eleusis
coins of the radical democrats -- have no Crescent Moon but have an
Extra Sprig at the foot of the Owl. Little fractional coins of Athens
show these kinds of differences to make them readily clear from each
other.

only coins that should be called Emergency Issue Owls are those that
can be linked to just one hoard, the Eleusis/Piraeus Hoard of 1902.
This doesn't make sense numismatically or logically -- there have been
many other hoards uncovered before and since then that included
Emergency Issue Owls -- and this thesis has been ignored.

That is circular reasoning. How would you determine in the first
place whether the hoard was of Emergency issues? The Eleusis Hoard
has a body of evidence behind it: the style of the coins; placement
in time and locale; the number of coins in the find. It makes perfect
sense on numismatic evidence and political logic. That said, the
Eleusis Hoard is only the best offering for what is at most the
unproved assertion that there were official fake "Emergency Issues."

Mike M.
Michael E. Marotta
Caveat emptor

On Mar 13, 7:27*am, Mike Marotta wrote:

These coins have been die linked by their obvious style to the Emergency
Issue -Gold- Coins, an earlier stop-gap. Someone used the gold coin
dies to make these fakes.

You don't even know what the term "die linked" means. A smaller coin
can't be die linked to a larger coin unless the type or design of the
larger coin fills only a part of the flan, which didn't happen with
these coins. As with most Owls, the type was crowded on the flan. Die
linked means a coin has been made with the same obverse or reverse die
as another coin when it was struck. It doesn't mean it has the same
style. Die linking is one of the most fundamental aspects of
numismatic scholarship. You talk about facts, but you're just making
stuff up, again.

--

Consumer: http://rg.ancients.info/guide
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:::::Pulling up a chair to watch the show

On Mar 13, 10:26*am, Jud wrote:
:::::Pulling up a chair to watch the show

Thanks, but it would be like the Roman Colosseum, and I don't want to
be party to that kind of carnage. It would also be futile because one
of the parties never seems to recognize when he has had -- yuck -- a
rhetorical jugular sliced open. So let me try, emphasis on try, to
swing this back to a show and tell about really interesting old coins
rather than some futile, energy-sapping combat ... as entertaining as
this might be, and I understand well the appeal. Much here depends on
Anka, as always. She can use her considerable powers for good or for
evil. I pray for her.

--

Consumer: http://rg.ancients.info/guide
Connoisseur: http://rg.ancients.info/glom
Counterfeit: http://rg.ancients.info/bogos

Here's another Owl for Anka (and anybody else):

http://rg.ancients.info/misc/Owl3.jpg

What is it? Why is it interesting (or not)? I know why it's ugly. g
But there's interest, and history, in that ugliness.

This is also a very recent acquisition. There's more uncertainty with
it than the previous Owl I pointed to, in a subtle kind of way.
Anybody care to give it a shot? To try to make this more interesting,
I won't yet disclose the weight and diameter.

--

Consumer: http://rg.ancients.info/guide
Connoisseur: http://rg.ancients.info/glom
Counterfeit: http://rg.ancients.info/bogos

On Mar 13, 11:24�am, Reid Goldsborough
wrote:
Here's another Owl for Anka (and anybody else):

http://rg.ancients.info/misc/Owl3.jpg

What is it? Why is it interesting (or not)? I know why it's ugly. g
But there's interest, and history, in that ugliness.

This is also a very recent acquisition. There's more uncertainty with
it than the previous Owl I pointed to, in a subtle kind of way.
Anybody care to give it a shot? To try to make this more interesting,
I won't yet disclose the weight and diameter.

--

Consumer:http://rg.ancients.info/guide
Connoisseur:http://rg.ancients.info/glom
Counterfeit:http://rg.ancients.info/bogos

I'll bite. It looks like an intermediate style owl with two test
cuts, one at the owl's neck and one below Athena's chin. Is the tet a
forgery?

~Anka

On Mar 13, 2:00*pm, wrote:

I'll bite. *It looks like an intermediate style owl with two test
cuts, one at the owl's neck and one below Athena's chin. *Is the tet a
forgery?

~Anka

Anybody else want to take a shot at identifying this and mentioning
anything noteworthy about it ... aside from its ugliness g:

http://rg.ancients.info/misc/Owl3.jpg

--

Consumer:http://rg.ancients.info/guide
Connoisseur:http://rg.ancients.info/glom
Counterfeit:http://rg.ancients.info/bogos

In article Jud writes:
:::::Pulling up a chair to watch the show

Take also your crisps and sixpack.
--
dik t. winter, cwi, science park 123, 1098 xg amsterdam, nederland, +31205924131
home: bovenover 215, 1025 jn amsterdam, nederland; http://www.cwi.nl/~dik/

Reid Goldsborough wrote:
On Mar 13, 2:00 pm, wrote:

I'll bite. It looks like an intermediate style owl with two test
cuts, one at the owl's neck and one below Athena's chin. Is the tet a
forgery?

~Anka

Anybody else want to take a shot at identifying this and mentioning
anything noteworthy about it ... aside from its ugliness g:

http://rg.ancients.info/misc/Owl3.jpg

--

Consumer:http://rg.ancients.info/guide
Connoisseur:http://rg.ancients.info/glom
Counterfeit:http://rg.ancients.info/bogos

the obverse appears to be double struck.

About this coin:

http://rg.ancients.info/misc/Owl3.jpg

Anka and Ian are both correct. It is an Intermediate Style Owl minted
in Athens c. 350-294 BC. This makes it about 23 centuries old. That’s
old. Older that me, and that makes me feel good. It’s an authentic
coin, not a counterfeit, same as with most of the coins in my little
collection, despite my continuing interest in ancient and modern
forgeries, with these attempts to fake history. It can be attributed
among other ways as Sear 2537 (or SG 2537). It’s likely not an earlier
Intermediate Style because there are no remnants of an incuse square
on the reverse.

Interesting stuff: It has in fact been double struck. What at first
glance looks like it might be a curved test cut on the obverse (there
is a straight and fairly unobtrusive test cut on the reverse under the
owl’s head) is actually the curvature of Athena’s chin that has been
widened by the double striking. If you look carefully, you can see two
right eyes, two right nose nostrils, and two mouths.

Despite the use of the term "double struck," what may have happened
with this and similar coins is that the hammer or planchet slipped
during the striking of the coin, causing the double or ghost image,
meaning this didn't necessarily happen with two strikes of the hammer.
What's more, many ancient coins are believed to have been struck with
more than one hammer blow to bring up the details of their high-relief
design. The term "die slippage" is therefore sometimes used instead of
"double struck."

Another interesting tidbit, I think: The coin was sold as having
“hoard patina.” In this case, that’s just a euphemism for “serious
corrosion.” The corrosion has eaten into the metal and appears both in
this photo and on the coin in hand not to be elevated about the coin
surface but to be a part of it. Cleaning it would likely just result
in the loss of detail and a pitted mess underneath. Thus whoever
cleaned this coin stopped where he did.

The corrosion, black, appears to be silver sulfide, the same silver
reactant that produces beautiful multicolored toning on U.S. silver
coins when it’s thin. Over many centuries the sulfide in the right (or
wrong) circumstances continues reacting with the silver until it
results in this, a nice example of the inexorable effect of time.

Despite the corrosion and the reverse test cut, the coin is still full
weight, at 16.99 grams.

--

Consumer:http://rg.ancients.info/guide
Connoisseur:http://rg.ancients.info/glom
Counterfeit:http://rg.ancients.info/bogos