Orichalcum Hyperpyron of John III?

[KenDorney]

Apologies if this topic has come up before.  About 5 years ago an unusual hoard of John III base metal hyperpyra came to market.  I will let you follow this link for your opinions:

https://www.romanumismatics.com/article_detail?article_id=2&lang=en&tag=Byzantine

Barry Murphy has condemned these but when asked hasn't responded as to why.  I cant argue with either Murphy or Bendall; they have more knowledge and experience than I have.  I have seen a couple of these which pre-date the hoard by about 10 years, but that may not mean much.  Does anyone have experience with them or opinions?

[Glebe]

Hi Ken,

As you have noticed these types have been around for quite a while and in fact they were discussed at length on the Forum Byzantine site some time ago.

For some of this discussion see here:

https://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=53639.msg332419#msg332419

Note that Val Marchev of Orthodox Coins and CLBC condemned these types from the start.

Note also that these types also come with all sorts of coatings quite different from the brassy types, but Bendall was seemingly unaware of these when he analysed his so-called hoard.

Ross G.

Edited June 13, 2023 by Glebe

[TheTrachyEnjoyer]

There was a numisforum thread a while back and I shared some of the more egregious examples there. In my opinion, these are fake.

[theotokevoithi]

This is a matter of what we consider fake. These are jewerly items from the Balcans, used as a pendant (opinion).The motif of john iii is the most common and they used to wear these pendants for religious reasons and to state their byzantine-orthodox origin after the conquest by Venetians-Francs-Genovese crusaders.

These are called ''KONSTANTINATA - AISELINATA'' and people considered that they represent st Constantine and st Helen. We use to take them to the orthodox church in thursday of easter for religious reasons.

 

The attachment is the Konstantinato my mother received as a gift in her mariage in 1976 (silver). We still do it and it is the same motif of vatatzes hyperpyron. Some are beautiful, but it is not a coin now. This is happening from 13 century till now.

[theotokevoithi]

I have read the articles concerning the whole situation.

Numismatists trapped between taxonomy and coin pricing, using internet photos !!!

A survey in situ and historical sociological analysis is more useful, in a generally unresearched topic (huge variety of byzantine coins, aesthetic uniqueness).

Thank you for your reactions, keep collecting.

[quant.geek]

Seems someone tried to get it graded, and it came back Not Genuine 🤐

[theotokevoithi]

Not genuine : is a cruel sentence.

Why? Because they are not av and their shape elongated?

Even the grading comapany made the mistake to print Justinianus and not John iii. Nobody is perfect.

I believe they were found in Kosovo and it s better to have something, than nothing.

In their times they were gold and shiny !!!

[theotokevoithi]

2024 platinum edition jewelry, 500-700 $.

same motif and elongated in order to be elegant.

[ela126]

18 hours ago, quant.geek said:

Seems someone tried to get it graded, and it came back Not Genuine 🤐

Barry has opennly said on the FB group he doesn't believe these are real and is sticking to his story. I know he's done some XRFs on them and i believe one of the metals included he said was never included in any production until the 19th century. i believe this is his main sticking point, along with the complete absence of gold.

I looked past these 3 and focused on the unblievabley good 33 nummi also in this picture. curious to see where this lot lands, as i see people trying to sell these for 400-600 dollar each currently..

[theotokevoithi]

s.bendall

- All the coins appear to have been carefully struck with a single vertical blow unlike the usual Byzantine method of striking with two slanting blows of one or two different obverse dies which usually gives a central vertical line of overlap.[4] There is very little double striking on these coins considering the number of coins in the hoard. One coin (no. 74) has been double struck with the flan being flipped 180 degrees between strikes, something which would surely not be done by a modern forger (COIN FORGER).

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Perperi boctazati (vatatzes official but john ii s imitation of theme) : 16 2/3 to 18 c gold (17 c according to Pachymeris)

Contemporary Peperi latini, communi, buoni etc 16 1/2 c gold (they consider that the mint had a public department where people gave bullion metal and received coins of different sigla / They consider the latins copied them because of the inscriptions on some of them which are not engraved by a greek speaker or writer )

It was obvious that without gold content they were not john iii s  hyperpyra. The gold was given by the seljuks for grain after a famine, he had gold.

They have a great story, i believe they were made by a jeweller (shape).

If i had one of these tokens i would not consider it a problem, but not for 700 dollars.

XRF information and the paper is needed.

 

[Edessa]

I purchased an inexpensive example from Roma a few years ago as a learning experience. IMHO, the imagery is nicely done, but the strike is not convincing. And now this exact strike and very similar flan shape has shown up in quite a few examples. Might have it gilded and made into decent bit of jewelry.

[rasiel]

I've done a fair bit of XRF work on Byzantine coins. Here's what I wrote on the most recent thread. What's the reported zinc content? If you don't know I'd be happy to have yours tested.

Rasiel
 

[ela126]

It went for 34 dollars, for 3 of them, plus the fake 33. It also mentioned they were Ex Roma..

im sure the winner is ecstatic, and may just resell them citing the Roma auctions, but it definitely is the low water mark price wise for these.

thank you @rasiel for pointing out it’s the Zinc content which is damning.

[theotokevoithi]

the lack of Gold and the high percentage of exotic Zinc, as Rasiel describes, now is called Metallurgy and then (after 1500ad) Alchemy.

 

For some time, zinc was also known as false lead or COUNTERFEITUM . This was used for making imitation gold. In the early 16th century CE, Erasmus Ebner is reported to have established brass works in the Harz Mountains, where a substance known as artiϮcial cadmia/cadmea was used for making brass (Menkes 1970: 29). Forbes (1950: 277) thinks that Ebner was able to make metallic zinc in Europe for the Ϯrst time in the West, but it has yet to be proved by solid evidence.

Percy (1861: 519) suggests that zinc obtained from ϰues may have been used for smelting other metals, but evidence of such metals has yet to be found. On the basis of these literary references, it is sometimes claimed that zinc was known in the West, before it was imported from India or when its regular production began at Bristol in England. Neither Agricola's nor Paracelsus' identiϮcation of white metal could spearhead any further development of regular zinc production in Europe. Until zinc reached Europe from India, there was certainly a lot of confusion over the nature and identity of this metal.

Menkes (1970: 30–33) writes that during Medieval and late Medieval times, the European brass makers also added old copper and brass while smelting, as there was great demand for this scrap metal in Germany (Figure 3.2 ) and France. The Scandinavian brass objects had considerably higher percentages of zinc without any indication of scrap metal having been mixed in them. Was it made by mixing pure zinc (from India) with copper? In fact, zinc remained a mystery in the West until it was imported in the 17th century CE from the East. This, when imported, was a matter of great curiosity for Western scientists (Craddock 1987).

[CaveBear2]

It looks like our favorite boys are back at NAC Autumn Sale 2024. They're unstoppable!

[theotokevoithi]

They will be back : more shiny than ever.

Nine of them.