Ancient coin ? (Updated! more pics)

[history hunter]

I found this coin while metal detecting when I was a kid. I thought it was fake until I brought it to a coin show and a dealer said it was not necessarily fake. I was wondering if anyone knew anything about it?

 

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[Bigcypresshunter]

Great post and a good view of the 3 coins.

How come no better pics of the Arkansas coin? It was the Alabama coin that was lost.

The Arkansas coin is severely worn.

Severely worn? The Arkansas coin was given to the author. How come no better pics in the age of internet?

I dont understand it myself. Is it an attempt to conceal and misrepresent the facts? Hopefully we will get to the truth because our readers deserve nothing less. I dont see how they can possibly ignore this new "Farley" coin.

ADDED: Maybe there are better pics in her book. Does anyone have it? http://www.gloriafarley.com/

 

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[Bigcypresshunter]

I wonder how often fake coins get worn from being in circulation.

B

Maybe its a Turn of the Century era token carried and handled all those years by the owner for good luck.

 

[Bigcypresshunter]

Lol,funny how things turn out. I'll admit when i first found this thread and read what it was about,i'd just finished reading "the navigator",and this influenced my "closed minded americans" outbust! (Facinates me,coincidences like that.)

You may have googled something and found TN.

 

[Dano Sverige]

No.Had been lurking on here a couple of weeks before joining.

 

[Bigcypresshunter]

No response yet on my calls and e-mails. Shall I contact Mythbuster's?

​

 

[Iron Patch]

No response yet on my calls and e-mails. Shall I contact Mythbuster's?

​

If you think they'd consider blowing it up.

 

[Bigcypresshunter]

Although not an exact match, this is what I think it may be from. A turn-of-the-century ancient Greek design watch fob with a medallion charm. Notice the Roman head first pic. Horse head in second pic. Under the third it says- "The latest craze. Gentleman's fob, imitation ancient Roman coin design, silver plated, oxidized finish on German Silver". (also a gilt finish). All pics from a 1909 Sears, Roebuck and Co. Catalog.

 

[Bigcypresshunter]

You may notice the Oklahoma Farley coin is an exact match. http://www.gloriafarley.com/chap11.htm

THE OKLAHOMA THURIUM COINS

Two other ancient Mediterranean coins found two of my friends. They are included here because the three of us work together and the coins were discovered in the southern and eastern sections of Oklahoma. The two coins are almost identical and are of about the same time period as the seven Carthaginian coins described above. These coins from ancient Italy have been researched by my colleagues, Dr. Cyclone Covey, of Wake Forest University of North Carolina, and by Totten.

​

Fig. 11-6 The Thurium Coin, obverse (left) and reverse (right), Terral, Oklahoma. Photographs by Covey.

Covey wrote about a coin made into a medallion by four attached loops (Fig. 11-6). It was found by a fourteen-year-old farm boy, Elbert Martin, in about 1954 or 1955 in a red clay field which had been plowed to a depth of up to 14 inches. The field was 2 miles from Terral, Oklahoma, which is surrounded on three sides by a meander of the Red River. The Red River, the southern boundary of Oklahoma, is a major tributary of the Mississippi River.

The coin that Martin found was made of bronze, minted in Thurium, an Athenian colony in Italy, in approximately 200 B.C. The obverse bears a portrait of Athena, whereas the reverse shows a charging bull over a dolphin.

 

[BuckleBoy]

BigCy, don't take it personally. You, as well as ALL the people who help out here IDing finds, deserve respect. Folks have NO right to bash anyone for trying to provide an ID--FREE!!--as a service to the members here.


Those who want to quarrel should send their finds off in the mail--Insured--and PAY to have them ID'ed by professionals that are in many cases just as good as the folks we have here on Tnet.


What a bunch of Crap.

 

[Oroblanco]

I wonder how often fake coins get worn from being in circulation.

B

Maybe its a Turn of the Century era token carried and handled all those years by the owner for good luck.

A token based on a Punic coin, or to be specific, a Siculo-punic coin? Roman or Greek I could understand, as these are more numerous and quite popular and I have seen a number of them in antique shops. There are many Romanophiles out there, quite a few Grecophiles, and numerous Egyptophiles which is why there was (and is) a market for tokens, jewelry etc made in imitation of their coins and relics - but how many Carthagophiles are there? Most people don't know much about ancient Carthage much less have an interest in their relics and/or coins, which are not common. From personal experience, most folks, if they know anything about Carthage at all, they know Hannibal crossed the Alps with elephants and that is the extent of their interest.

Do you know of any examples of tokens showing Punic or Siculo-punic designs, which can be dated to before around 1969? Thank you in advance.
Oroblanco

 

[Bigcypresshunter]

I wonder how often fake coins get worn from being in circulation.

B

Maybe its a Turn of the Century era token carried and handled all those years by the owner for good luck.

Do you know of any examples of tokens showing Punic or Siculo-punic designs, which can be dated to before around 1969? Thank you in advance.
Oroblanco

I dont think most people in 1909 knew the difference between Siculo-Punic, Greek, or Roman. One side is Greek, the other a horse and palm tree. I think Sears used anything that looked good. The evidence is piling up. I found the last Farley coin in the 1909 Sears Catalog. The Pennsylvania coin is also a known copy. Its only a matter of time on the Punic. Thanks for participating.

 

[Bigcypresshunter]

BigCy, don't take it personally. You, as well as ALL the people who help out here IDing finds, deserve respect. Folks have NO right to bash anyone for trying to provide an ID--FREE!!--as a service to the members here.


Those who want to quarrel should send their finds off in the mail--Insured--and PAY to have them ID'ed by professionals that are in many cases just as good as the folks we have here on Tnet.

The nasty emails were not from a member wanting an ID. I think it was mostly just a misguided member having nothing to argue about with politics gone. Enough said. Thanks but Im more interested in the Farley Coins.

 

[Oroblanco]

Just wanted to give another example of Punic (Carthaginian) coins turning up in a place that they ought not to have, the island of Corvo in the Azores - the Azores are most easily reached from the west due to the winds and currents, read;

<from Atlantic Crossings Before Columbus, Frederick Pohl,
http://books.google.com/books?id=3h...ent coins found azores corvo carthage&f=false>

I don't think those Punic coins found in Corvo in 1749 were modern tokens, but it is possible I suppose.

Oroblanco

 

[IronSpike]

Just wanted to give another example of Punic (Carthaginian) coins turning up in a place that they ought not to have, the island of Corvo in the Azores - the Azores are most easily reached from the west due to the winds and currents, read;

<from Atlantic Crossings Before Columbus, Frederick Pohl,
http://books.google.com/books?id=3h...ent coins found azores corvo carthage&f=false>

I don't think those Punic coins found in Corvo in 1749 were modern tokens, but it is possible I suppose.

Oroblanco

Are there any pics of the 1749 Corvo coins?

 

[Woodland Detectors]

Thaks Dale for your work!

 

[johnnyi]

Big Cy, great detective work on your Sears ad in post 10922 and the following remarks by Covery, Totten, and others. It's just one more nail in a coffin loaded with nails already .

 

[Bigcypresshunter]

Just wanted to give another example of Punic (Carthaginian) coins turning up in a place that they ought not to have, the island of Corvo in the Azores - the Azores are most easily reached from the west due to the winds and currents, read;

<from Atlantic Crossings Before Columbus, Frederick Pohl,
http://books.google.com/books?id=3h...ent coins found azores corvo carthage&f=false>

I don't think those Punic coins found in Corvo in 1749 were modern tokens, but it is possible I suppose.

Oroblanco

A quick read and the black corroded coins are probably real. Thanks for the link. Our Carribean hurricanes start off the African coast and the prevailing winds are westerly.. That may explain the map on the coin.


I concede that the ancients may have even reached America, but Ill have to read up on it. All I am doing is concentrating my unbiased efforts on HH's coin and the Farley coins. You cannot prove the Carthaginians discovered America by presenting turn-of-the-century Sears Roebuck jewelry.

 

[IronSpike]

Apparently the Corvo coin hoard's existence is questionable.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyrenaic_coins_of_Corvo

 

[mickk]

You know, the patina on it in close up is very similar to andamooka opal after it has been boiled in sugar and cooked, or cooked in sulphuric acid.

Overall the crevices seem too clean to me. Just doesnt look right somehow.

 

[Oroblanco]

IronSpike wrote

Are there any pics of the 1749 Corvo coins?

As far as I know, no photos exist, only hand drawn pictures of them, which were sufficient to ID five types out of the nine examples, plus two of ancient Kyrene, a Greek city-state also in Africa and often allied with Carthage.

BigCypressHunter wrote
[quote[All I am doing is concentrating my unbiased efforts on HH's coin and the Farley coins. You cannot prove the Carthaginians discovered America by presenting turn-of-the-century Sears Roebuck jewelry.
[/quote]

Unbiased? Your own statements certainly hint at a personal bias, but I will take your word that you are un-biased. You have concluded that this example is a "turn-of-the-century Sears Roebuck jewelry" without having found a match? I am not saying that HH's coin or token absolutely and positively IS an ancient Punic or Siculo-punic coin or even a "limes" type of ancient imitative coin, it very well could be a modern fake - some of the recent fakes are getting pretty good, and those of Becker were very good, but still could be ID'ed by the experts. I am willing to wait to hear from an expert in ancient Carthaginian coins, like David Sear mentioned earlier.

As for these coins being the whole basis of the theory of Carthaginians reaching the Americas, surely coins will not suffice, even if every example could be proven to be from Carthage, we cannot prove the "provenance" of how and when they got deposited here. They are at best SUGGESTIVE evidence, unless an archaeologist should happen to dig up one in an "official" dig none found by anyone with a metal detector will be accepted by academia as evidence - even though in Europe, Africa and Asia, such finds are indeed taken as solid proof of at least contact with the culture that issued the coins, here in America they are rather automatically dismissed by the historians since they do not "fit" with the official Isolation theory which is taught in our schools. There is quite a bit of other evidence which has better "standing" in the eyes of historians, not so easily dismissed including shipwrecks.

It is an interesting find, regardless of what the experts verdict may turn out to be - I look forward to hearing more.
Oroblanco