... It is not clear why the lion needs a sword ( perhaps somebody know ? ) ...
The lion-and-sun symbol is a Turko-persian symbol, astrological in origin, and swordless lion-and-suns can be found on coins dating back to the Crusader period. The sword was added to the Persian national symbol sometime in the early 1800s. Originally it was the Zu’l-faqar, the Sword of Ali (founder of the Shiite sect); the lion holding it symbolising the power of the Shiite religion and the Sun represented the King. As the monarchy became secularized and europeanized, the sword was kept but the official meaning of the sword changed, emphasising the power of Persia's military forces.
I have some countries not yet on your list. I don't know how far back you want to include extinct countries (I see Czechoslovakia, East Africa and Netherlands East Indies are on your list) but I've only included 20th century ones. There are hundreds more that could be added, going back to ancient times.
Albania Armenia Australia - how could you miss that one, trigger? Austria - they're not very big, but they're there, on all the 25 and 50 schilling coins that depict the state arms. Three tiny ones in the little coat of arms on the reverse, at 2 o'clock - it's the arms of Carinthia. The arms of Salzburg at 6 o'clock has a slightly larger one. The large lion-like animal in the arms at 7 o'clock is actually the Panther of Styria, a goat-like critter with horns. Bohemia and Moravia, a Nazi puppet state in what is now the Czech Republic. Bulgaria Cyprus, a heraldic usage dating back to Richard the Lionheart's conquest of the island. Denmark Israel Italy Lebanon - well, the head of one, anyway. Paraguay Rwanda-Burundi Sierra Leone, of course! How could a country whose name means "Lion Mountains" not put lions on their coinage? Syria, the same lion-head as used on the Lebanon coin, only now there's two of them. Tanzania - that lion with cub is sooo cute! Many coins from Tibet feature the "snow lion" from local Buddhist mythology. He's much the same critter as the "lion" on Burmese coinage, so I suppose he still counts.
Steve, the Estonian coin (3 Lions on a Sheild) look almost exactly like the obverses of the 1834-1911 8 Doubles coins of Guernsey. How are the countries related?
They aren't. It's only on coins, which don't portray colour very well, that the two arms look the same.
The Estonian arms uses three blue lions on a gold background, derived from the arms of Denmark which once ruled the area. See Wikipedia.
The arms of Guernsey (and Jersey and England) are derived from the arms of Normandy, which had two gold lions on a red background. Richard the Lionheart, crusading King of England and Duke of Normandy, added the third gold lion, presumably to symbolize himself. Jersey and Guernsey, as the only remnants of the old Duchy of Normandy still in English hands, still both use the Normandy arms.
And just as an aside: you may occasionally see the animals on the English (and Channel Islander, and Estonian) arms described as "leopards" rather than lions. This comes about because of a technical distinction in heraldry. Large cat-like creatures that are standing upright on two legs (like the Scottish lion on their coat of arms) are called "lions". Otherwise identical creatures that are standing on three or four legs are called "leopards". You can still include heraldic "leopards" in your lion collection, though, since the same animal was intended.
A common misconception is that any coin pre-dating 1900 is ancient. I often get unsolicited emails from people with coins they inherited from a grandparent like Morgan silver dollars from the 1800s who want to know what their "ancient coin is worth" and I tell them I don't deal much in 'modern' U.S. coins and you can just see their head spinning in disbelief.
I've met collectors who think everything struck after 1600 is "modern junk".
So just how old does a coin have to be, to be classified as ancient?
The division of history into "ancient", "mediaeval" and "modern" was largely an invention of Renaissance historians. They declared themselves to be "modern" and considered everything before their time to be "mediaeval". The "ancient" age was held to have ended with the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 AD. It has very little practical meaning in non-European contexts, but is still often applied there by Western collectors. China, for instance, never really had a "dark age" in the same sense that Europe did.
Personally, I use the following definitions for my coin collection.
"Ancient" is anything from the invention of coinage up to 500 AD. It's a convenient break for us numismatists because in 498 AD the "Eastern Roman" emperor Anastasius I reformed the coinage, effectively beginning the "Byzantine series". Thus, everything "Roman" is ancient, everything "Byzantine" is mediaeval.
The end of the mediaeval period is somewhat arbitrarily set at 1450 AD. Some historians and collectors try to tie the beginning of the "modern" period to a specific historical event or marker, such as 1453 (the fall of Constantinople and the end of Byzantine Empire), 1492 (Columbus discovering new world), 1517 (the start of the Protestant Reformation), 1518 (introduction of the thaler coin) or 1601 (beginning of Krause catalogues).
The other side (I don't know which is reverse or obverse)
The pic in the top post is the obverse; it reads (in order top-bottom-right-left) Xian Feng tong bao. "XianFeng" is the reign-name for the emperor who ruled from 1850 to 1861 and literally means "all abundance" or perhaps more liberally, "plenty for everyone". "Tong bao" means "current coin". This is the standard obverse inscription for this emperor, seen on most cash coins of his reign except for the large multiple cash (which typically used "zhong bao" or "yuan bao" instead).
On the other side, it reads (again, in the order top-bottom-right-left) Tian xia tai ping, literally "Heaven under great peace" or more grammatically, "Peace under Heaven". This is a formula not used on ordinary Imperial money, but was one of several forms used on palace coins.
However, I think it is extremely unlikely that this particular emperor would have issued coins with this particular wish expressed on his palace coins. That's because, for most of his reign, the forces of the Taiping Rebellion occupied most of southern China. Taiping Rebel coins use an obverse formula very similar to this reverse, namely "Tai Ping Tian Kuo" (Great Peace Heaven Kingdom, or Heavenly Kingdom of Peace). The phrase "tai ping" would probably have churned the stomach of this emperor and he would not have wanted to put it on his palace coins. The palace coin of this reign illustrated in Krause is unique in using the phrase "Yi tong tian xia", meaning "One Unity Heaven Under" or "United Under Heaven". Reunification rather than peace was certainly the goal of the Qing Emperors until the rebellion was finally crushed in 1864.
The top one does resemble a "palace coin" of the Xian Feng emperor (as seen in the introductory section of CHinese coins in Krause: "Non-circulating issues - Palace issues". However, the illustrated type for this emperor is different to the one on this coin. Also, the detail on this coin are very "mushy" - palace coins were generally of very high quality, given that they were gifts from the emperor himself to his trusted servants. There were no examples of this scarce coin on zeno to compare it to. I'd certainly be very skeptical of paying that amount of money for it.
Chinese silver dollars have been favourites of counterfeiters ever since they were issued. I'd definitely want to know the weight to be sure, but I don't really like the look of this one. The details of Li Yuan-hung's uniform seem to be melting away in the background and there's more than just the cross-stroke of the H missing from the lettering, when compared to the examples on zeno.ru
These were dug up in Egypt, where the archaeo-protectionists like Dr Hawass hold sway. Collectors will never own any these coins, because collectors are The Enemy. These coins will all wind up in a museum, whether the museum can afford to store and display them properly or not.
Indeed, coins like this are dug up in Egypt all the time. I own two, though mine are from the time of Ptolemy VI not Ptolemy III. The only reason these made the news this time is that the archaeologists got to these coins before the looters did.
Curiously, the picture included in this article (and in the articles on this story on other news sites) doesn't actually show what the actual coins found and described look like, with the portrait of Zeus-Amun. The coins under discussion actually look like this. The coins shown in the news article depict a woman; presumably they are scarcer types from Ptolemy III's wife, Berenike II.
French revolutionary assignats were backed by the value of lands confiscated from the old state-sponsored church. However, there was only so much land to be confiscated, and the land itself quickly fell in price because nobody could afford to buy it. But the printing presses kept running; assignats were one of the earliest examples of what we now call "hyperinflation" - when inflation gets so out of control, the printers can barely keep up with the increasing face values and new note issues required. A situation very similar happened in the US with the Continental Dollar, except in France, it was even worse.
The "sol" (in French Canada, it was called the "sou") was a secondary money of account in France, immediately prior to the revolution. There were 12 deniers to a sol and 26 sols to a livre. A 1 sol coin was copper or brass, and worth about the equivalent of a US cent or British halfpenny. By January 1792, the date on your note, the inflation was well and truly underway, though not quite in the "hyper" phase. So a "15 sols" assignat wouldn't have had a very high face value to start with; it would have quickly become worthless as the hyperinflation progressed.
The Kennedy 5 rupees "coin" issued by Sharjah in 1964 was apparently issued without official government authorization. It's not listed in the Krause catalogues, but in the "Unusual" catalogue it's KMX# 1 and 2.
Paraguay issued silver 150 guaranies and gold 1500, 3000 and 4500 guaranies coins in 1974 as part of their series on notable world figures. KM# 114, 126, 138 and 146.
Another "unofficial" issue is the German "argentus ducatus" series; KMX# M161 and similar "coins" from 1963 commemorate him.
Sorry, I've been away up north for a week and didn't see this post till just now.
My Sear catalogue is from the 1970's, so it's values are way out of date; it lists #1825 as £4. Last year I paid AU$25 for a well-worn Class D anonymous follis (Sear 1836), which lists at £5 in my catalogue. I'd put your coin somewhere in the $20 to $40 range.
It's Byzantine. I believe it's an "anonymous follis" of the period 979 - 1081 AD. This one appears to be Class C, obverse Christ standing, reverse IC XC NI KA in quarters of jewelled cross. Attributed to the reign of Emperor Michael IV, who reigned form 1034 to 1041.
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