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Coin of the Month

October 2024: A New Silver Type of Abydos from a Private Collection


The Corpus Nummorum is a collaborative project involving numerous scholars, both past and present. It primarily catalogues coins from public collections, but also includes specimens from coin dealers and private collections. Private collecting is a fascinating hobby that combines enthusiasm for various aspects of history with aesthetic appeal, while offering coin collectors the opportunity to "grasp" genuine artefacts from past eras, whereas most other objects from that time are either displayed in showcases or unaffordable.

An overview of the collections that contribute to the CN can be found at https://www.corpus-nummorum.eu/collections. The private collectors are located in Australia, Bulgaria, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Most of them have so far contributed only a few coins to the project, as few collectors focus on ancient Thrace, the region with which the CN project started and is still primarily associated today. However, there are notable exceptions, such as the Plankenhorn Collection, which alone contributes 500 Mysian coins to the Corpus Nummorum.

In addition to focusing on geographical regions, coin collectors can choose various aspects for selecting their collectibles. Some specialize in entire epochs, others collect coins from a single city, focus on specific motifs, or collect based on aesthetic criteria. The "FH Collection"

follows a special approach: FH stands for "facing heads", focusing on frontal depictions with an emphasis on heads and busts. It contains coins from all regions of the ancient world, including the regions covered by the CN project: Thrace, Moesia, Mysia and the Troad.

The coin which is presented this month comes from Abydos in the Troad. It is a unique piece that appeared in the coin trade two years ago. The coin shows a frontal bust of Apollo. Although Apollo and his sister Artemis are strongly represented in city coinage, suggesting they were among the main deities of Abydos, only a few coins of the city bear frontal depictions on the obverse. Abydos is not an exception in this regard, as almost everywhere people were reluctant to depict gods "face to face" - too great was the reverence for the sacred countenance. A frontal depiction of Apollo from Abydos was previously known only on another silver coin type (2808), which has an eagle on the reverse. The image combination of Apollo and a kithara offered on our silver specimen was previously known only from some bronze coins (20165). The coin from the FH Collection illustrates, on the one hand, that numismatics is not a closed field of research, but one should always expect new discoveries.

On the other hand, it shows that collectors can help make coins accessible for research that might otherwise have gone unnoticed.



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