• V. P. Lebedev
  Numismatic studies by the Saratov region student and numismatist Y.E. Pyrsov (1930–1996) Study 1. The coins of Ukek
  Study 2. The coins of other mints
  Study 3. Amir Timur in the Golden Horde
  Study 4. Numismatic puzzles
• A. V. Pachkalov
  A small early 15^th century hoard of silver coins of the golden horde from the site of Selitrennoe
• N. N. Ivanov
  Coin gatherings on the archaeological route Of the Khorezm expedition in 1966
• V. P. Lebedev, O. V. Trostiansky
  A hoard of Golden Horde dirhams of the first half of the XIV^th century from Tatarstan
• J. G. Muhametshin
  The coins of Mokhshi from the funds of the Bolgar state historic-architectural reserve
• V. B. Klokov, V. P. Lebedev
  The coin circulation of the Golden-Horde town of Beljamen
• V. P. Lebedev, V. N. Dunin
  The drawings of lead seals from the archive of the Gorodets region student y. K. Miatov
  Primary analysis of images on the published lead seals from Gorodets
• V. P. Lebedev
  Seven unpublished coins of the Crimean khanate of the 15–17^th centuries
• P. N. Petrov, V. A. Kalinin
  The hoards of kufic dirhams
  
• P. N. Petrov
  Using the macroanalysis in the study of the hoards of kufic coins of the 8–12^th centuries, estimating its applicability and possibilities
• B. D. Kochnev
  A group of coins from a hoard containing the 11^th century coins of Saghaniyan
• Y. V. Studitsky, V. P. Lebedev
  Vassal coinage of the 70s of the 11^th century — the final stage of the monetary system of the Shaddadid emirate of Ganja
• V. N. Nastich
  Almaty — the 13^th century mint
• O. V. Trostiansky
  The western kopeks with the names of Ivan IV and Feodor Ivanovich (to the problem of the minting place)
• V. A. Malanin
  Russian silver coins of 1825 — the first coins of Nikolay I

The present essay contains a selection of items offered by Yuri Efremovich in his per-sonal correspondence: "pioneer" attributions of the unedited types of Jujid coins, new solutions of some doubtful definitions and, I dare assert, the opening of a new page in the his-tory of the Golden Horde numismatics. Perhaps some of the attributions suggested by Yuri Efremovich would not become an "ultimate verity", but such is the destiny of most trial-blazer’s solutions. Let us do justice to his enormous diligence, bravery of his thought and outstanding flair for deciphering the numismatic puzzles.

A small hoard of Jujid silver coins dated to the first decade of the 15^th century was unearthed in autumn of 1997 in the site near village Selitrennoe, in the district of Kuchugur where most of the 15^th century coins had been found. According to the founder’s words, the coins (10 pieces) were dispersed in the area of 1.5 sq. m. Another group of 4 coins was lifted within several metres from that place, but because of the dense coating of oxide they could not be attributed and included into the described hoard.
The composition of the hoard is shown in Tab.1, and Fig.1 represents their appearance with the numbers according to the Table.
The hoard contains the coins of the first two khans ruling in the 15^th century - Shadi Bek (800-809 AH/1398-1407 AD) and Pulad (809-813 AH/1407-1411 AD). The presence of Pulad Khan’s coins in the hoard points at the probable time of its burial.
All coin types present in the hoard are known, but because not all of them were described in full detail and illustrated in the previous publications, their descriptions are given here.
All the coins were struck in the southern centres of the Golden Horde, as well as the pieces of other fixed hoards of the same period found in Lower Povolzh’ye. There were no coins of the Bulghar (by then already named Kazan) mint among them; the only hoard that contained up to 0.3 per cent of those coins was a great one found in 1867 at Shareny Bugor. This fact must serve an additional confirmation to the opinion that early in the 15^th century the Volga Bulgharia and Lower Povolzh’ye represented separated economic regions of the Golden Horde.

In July 1966 the archaeological route headed by Dr. Hist. E. E. Nerazik was blazed along the left bank of Amu Darya.
The longest stand on the route and the largest number of numismatic pickings was made on a site near Adak (84 coins, including broken pieces). On the other sites the coin finds were distributed as follows:

In January 1998 a small bag with silver coins (ca 60 pcs.) was brought to one of the antiquity boutiques of Kazan, allegedly from Bolgar. The review of the set showed that it consisted of the Golden Horde dirhams of the first half of the 14^th century, one foreign piece resembling the coinage of the Mongols of Persia, and up to 10 almost entirely effaced dirhams. One can suppose that the mentioned complex a hoard of the Golden Horde coins found in Tatarstan, probably in the vicinity of the town of Bolgar. To investigate the hoard, we obtained from it 20 genuine samples and 5 pencil rubbings. Table 1 presents all important properties of the specimens we have seen, as well as their attribution.
Fig.1 contains the reconstructions of some coins from the hoard; to achieve the completeness of type appearance, similar coins from private collections have been used. The numbers of the reconstructions correspond to those in Tab.1.
In Figs. 1/1 and 1/3-5 we present the reconstructions of all dirhams struck at Khorezm, encountered in the part of the hoard we saw. Two dirhams dated 720 AH (Tab.1, Nos.3 and 4) have been struck with the same couple of dies, whereas a piece with the lost date (Tab.1, No.5) represents a different die combination. Many coins of Khorezm with various dates have been published without pictures, so we could not determine the issue date of dirham No.5. The second group of reconstructions (Fig.1/18-21) embraces all dirhams from the examined part of the hoard that have been minted in the name of Jani Bek at Gьlistan. The only picture of one similar specimen has been published in a Ch. M. Fraehn’s work.

It is commonly known that copper coins, as a rule, did not play the principal role in the economic and monetary relations of the states, meeting for the most part the requirements of local market. In the Golden Horde, besides its capital, copper was struck episodically at the mints of Bolgar (Bulghar), Gulistan, Mokhshi, Haji Tarkhan, Ukek and some other ones. Comparing the coin finds from Bolgar and the both Sarays shows that more than half of the copper coin finds in Bolgar belong to the production of Saray and New Saray mints, whereas the finds of Bulghar coins in Lower Povolzh’ye are rather sporadic. On analyzing the coins from Narovchat, A. A. Krotkov came to a conclusion that the copper coins produced in situ did not use to leave their native town. An attempt is made in the present article to evaluate the verifiability of such supposition for the monetary circulation of Bulghar and Mokhshi, the two provincial centres of the Golden Horde. The publication also contains a catalogue of coins struck at Mokhshi from the collection of the Bolgar State Historic-Architectural Reserve, supplied with their detailed description and drawing pictures.

The authors of the present publication obtained for investigation coin gatherings of 1997 from the site Vodianskoe, partly delivered by a resident of village Dubovka to "Antikvariat" shop and partly borrowed from regional students. The total of those gatherings comprises 51 silver dirhams and 1311 copper puls. A detailed typological and metrological analysis of the cited coin complex forms the first part of the work. Besides, a large group of Jujid coins, found in various years on the site Vodianskoe and not represented among the gatherings of 1997, was exposed in a number of private collections in Volgograd. Their descriptions are placed in the second part of the article.
The coin material collected from a certain site, so numerous and analyzed in so much detail, is subject to publication for the first time. Alongside with coin descriptions, the article contains the reconstructions of all coin types, and in some cases coin dies too. A serious analysis of the material under study is expounded.
The number of copper puls in the Vodianskoe complex is many times more than all before known coins taken together, so their study has allowed to expose a lot of new and unexpected features of the coin production and money circulation in the Golden Horde, and Beljamen in particular.
The integrated complex includes 93 types and 66 variants of Jujid puls, of which 20 types and 40 variants have not yet been published. Although copper coins used to serve the local circulation in the towns of the Golden Horde, the Beljamen finds originate from 13 different mints. Like in the dirham group, the metropolitan copper mintage prevails in number of pieces (92 per cent), but regarding the type variety, the quota of provincial coinage almost reaches a half (48 per cent). The most active penetration into the market of Beljamen is fixed for the puls of Mokhshi (10.1 per cent types), Azaq and Khorezm (8.7 per cent each); on the other hand, the copper production of Bulghar, rather abundant in the first third of the 14^th century, as well as that of Majar and Shahr al-Jadid in the 60-70s, seems to have never reached this town.
Coins bearing the mint name similar to ‘adil (?) are encountered with on the site Vodianskoe only; this fact, to our opinion, must point at their real "birthplace".
Another peculiarity of the monetary circulation in Beljamen is the presence of an appreciable part (7.5 per cent) of crude imitations of the puls of the 1st half of the 14^th century, which are seldom met on other sites. The imitations of the puls of the 1330s are not numerous. Judging by the shapes of coin flans, they have been struck in the same technique as the original types, namely on pieces cut off from copper wires or thin rods. The latter allows us to suppose that these crudely made coins have not been imitations, for they could be the "official" emission of a given mint, but produced by some inexperienced engravers enlisted for the needs of rapid increase in the volume of copper coin production.
The presence of copper puls with overstrikes among the coin finds is also characteristic for the majority of the sites, including Vodianskoe. Both of the studied groups together contain 151 pieces, stamped with 7 kinds of overstrikes. The most numerous of them, ‘adil and a tripod tamgha, have most probably been produced at Beljamen. Two thirds of overstruck puls belong to the time of Toqtamish; the latest types with date indications show 795 and 799 AH. Although copper puls without overstrikes in general date back only to the 14^th century (from the undated emissions of Toqta up to 799 AH/1397 AD), still the considerable number of overstamped specimens originally dated with the 790s, including the same 799 AH, must witness with certainty that Beljamen has survived after its destruction in 1395 AD, and the life there has been going on some time in the early 15^th century.

Yuri Konstantinovich Miatov was a collector of material monuments of the history of Gorodets. The main supplier of exhibits to his collection was the Volga River: during regular spring flash floods it washed away the high hill of the town that had served an embankment for the Gorodets fortress in the 13-14^th centuries, and exposed a great number of remnants, the most numerous among them being lead seals, silver and copper coins.
Yuri Konstantinovich passed away in a tragic accident, his house was burnt down and most of his collection of lead seals perished in the fire. Quite accidentally, his young disciple V. N. Dunin preserved a part of seals and two tracing-papers with the drawings of 87 various types and variants of images registered on those monuments of sphragistics by Y. K. Miatov. The preserved samples have been among 1000 pieces handed over by V. N. Dunin to the State Hermitage, and their pictures are published in this article.
Unfortunately, we do not know the exact number of specimens that have been decorated with the images published here; it estimates approximately within some 600-800 samples. Paying homage to the memory of Y. K. Miatov, we place his drawings in Tab. without any alterations. The type classification of the images elaborated by him has been preserved too.

Very soon we are to celebrate the centennial of publishing the fundamental work by O. F. Retovski Die Munzen der Girei that has been brought to light in "Труды Московского Нумизматического Общества" in 1901-1905. However, if we remember that the edition of his Corpus of Crimean Khanate coins has commenced first in "Труды Таврической Ученой Архивной Комиссии" as early as 1893, we must recognize this jubilee as already accomplished. The completeness of types, variants and die varieties of the coins of the Girei dynasty represented in that catalogue was so absolute that up to the most recent time there emerged no serious printed additions to it. But a whole century being not so short a term for numismatics, there has been accumulated, at least in the private collections of Russia and Ukraine, a certain stock of new Crimean coins that are not represented in O. F. Retovski’s masterpiece.
The present article presents a publication of seven unedited Girei coins of the 15-17^th centuries from private collections in Simferopol, Sevastopol, Feodosia, as well as Moscow, Kovrov and Dzerzhinsk.

The publication is dedicated to eight hoards of Kufic coins found in various times in Caucasia, Belorussia, Russia and Turkmenistan. Each hoard is described separately and to the different extent of detalization, as minute as the concrete material allows it.

Since lately, the numismatic literature witnesses more works dedicated to the comparative analysis of coin hoards and the study of coin silver streams in the past; attempts are made to obtain information from the results of such analysis. Among the problems examined most intently, the chronological composition of the hoards and its comparative analysis are discerned in a series of articles by A. V. Fomin.
The present article considers the restrictions put on A. V. Fomin’s statistical analysis by the specific nature of numismatic objects, as well as the applicability of the cited method to the processing of hoard objects in general.
It is worth noting that the macroanalytic work on hoards commenced by A. V. Fomin is by no means easy and simple, for the trial-blazer is often unable to take account of every detail in the new way of research. And though his results must be recognized extremely relative (especially regarding the estimation of the state of coin flows in accordance with their periodic diversification), rather emotional than conclusive, still the sound sense attends this method, it only needs to be recomprehended and applied. Criticizing is always easier than creating something by oneself, but no truth is born without criticism.

In issue 1 of Древности Нижегородского Поволжья P. N. Petrov has published the information about a hoard found somewhere in the south of Middle Asia around 1991. Judging by its content, the place of its find could be either the Surkhandarya district of Uzbekistan, or the adjoining territory of Tajikistan. The primary volume of the hoard ought to number several thousands of coins, since it filled a big bucket, but then it was dispersed among the people. Collector from Moscow A. A. Koifman managed to review about 400 dirhams from the hoard and determine its dynastic and chronological composition (Qarakhanid, Ghaznavid, Seljuq, possessors of Saghaniyan, 414-435 AH/1025-1044 AD). P. N. Petrov examined 7 coins from the same hoard and published them in an article with descriptions, photo pictures of the best preserved specimens and a brief review of the historical situation laying beneath the mentioned numismatic monuments.
Late in 1997 collector V. F. Tsapin (Samarkand) acquired 20 similar dirhams, but he could not obtain any information about their origin. As follows from looking through those samples, they could comprise another part of the same hoard, or they were part of another treasure, very close to the former one in content. Anyhow, the named group has turned to contain the pieces so curious that the whole group certainly deserves a publication and greatest attention. The composition of the examined coins is as follows:

Coins of Shaddadid emirs following Shawur I were unknown until recently. In 1997 a small complex of black base silver coins with the names of Seljuq sultans was brought to Moscow from Armenia. 30 pieces from that group were handed to us for detailed study, the results of which are reflected in the present work.
Fig.1 contains drawing reconstructions of the elicited types; the die varieties in these pictures have been ignored in order to achieve a more complete type appearance.
Only two of the distinguished types (Nos.2-3) can be confidently related to the coinage of Fadl II b. Shawur (459-466 AH/1067-1073 AD). For better convenience, all anthroponymic data of all eight coin types, as well as the similar information from the dirhams of Shawur I, are collected in Tab.1. Two types of dirhams of Fadl II (Nos.2-3) have been first to represent the name of Sejuqid sultan Alp Arslan. Type 4 has not preserved (or actually has devoid of) any of the three possible proper names, whereas the date of the dirham (466 AH) coincides with the moment of deposing Fadl II from the throne by Fadl III. It is reasonable to suppose that type 4 has been struck yet under Fadl III. Judging by the presence of caliph al-Qa’im’s name in the legends of type 5, the dirham could not be issued after 467 AH, most probably, under Fadl III as well. The following type 6 struck under new sultan Malik-shah in 466-467 AH; on the coins of Fadl III the title is absent at all, and instead of the name, a laqab is placed - Shams al-Muluk ‘Sun of the kings’. Another type 7 struck between 465-467 AH actually has no reference to the Shaddadid ruler. Finally, type 8 has been struck after 467 AH in the names of the next caliph al-Muqtadi and sultan Malik-shah. Again, there are no traces of the existence of Shaddadid emir in the inscriptions on the coin. It is probable that this type is already a purely Seljuq coin, because since 468 AH Arran has become a possession of Seljuq general Sau Tegin and the Shaddadid Emirate of Ganja has ceased to exist.

The article represents a broadened and illustrated version of the author’s paper delivered to the "Bartol’dovskie chteniya" conference in 1993; the English (abridged) edition see in: ONS Newsletter No. 155, Winter 1998, p. 13-15. It concerns the recent discovery of silver coins struck at Almatu (nowadays’ Almaty, or Alma-Ata of late) in the epoch of the Mongol dominion. The description of two dirhams, each bearing two tamghas (one of common use on many Chaghatayid coins of the 13^th century, and the other very special, never met with before), is accompanied with detailed philological and historical analysis of these unique specimens. The clearly inscribed mint name on one of them, together with some extra information, leaves no doubt in their correct topographic attribution. As to their mint dates, the exact year indications are given neither with traditional Arabic wording nor with figures, but by means of so-called "Abjad" chronograms , which can be deciphered as 684 AH/1285 AD and 685 AH/1286 AD respectively. Based on these coins, we can state the existence of one more Chaghatayid mint, in addition to the 16 known and at least two unpublished ones, which were either reactivated or newly established to provide enough mintage for carrying out the monetary reform initiated by Mas'ud Beg in the Chaghatayid khanate about 670/1271-72. In the aspect of cultural history, the coins of Almatы make a certain contribution to the study of sophisticated Mongol heraldry, representing a new sign of property. Another important aspect of the coins under study is the unusual and seldom encountered "Abjad" manner of dating: once fixed in the Arabic-written coin legends dating back to the 13^th century, it provides further researchers a reliable precedent for solving similar problems they might face in making out other mediaeval Muslim coins.
The discovery of the Chaghatayid mint of Almatы, alongside with its paramount numismatic importance, allows us to deduce more inferences of certain historical value. First of all, the name placed on the coin from the late 13^th century can be actually taken for the earliest known record of this toponyme applicable to today’s Almaty that must be regarded as its firsthand, legal and plenipotentiary inheritor. Hence it becomes reasonable that the town bearing this name is not 145 years old, as it follows from its official chronology, but its history can be dated back to at least 715 years, as testified by the new exactly dated numismatic sources, the most ancient for the moment and well worthy of confidence.

In spring of 1998, sorting out a large number of Russian wire coins taken off from tukhya (a little cap, detail of Chuvash national garment), I found two coins with the name of Ivan IV and letters к/хх under the rider’s image. On the thorough study of a better-preserved sample, I managed to reconstruct the die details that have not been described in the modern literature. The diameter of the studied specimen (see Fig.1) is 22-25 mm, the weight (taking account of a pierced hole and an erasure in the upper part) = 0.495 g; the die correlation is exactly (!).
I consider probable that the emergence of western kopeks did not result from the activity of the British Company (to A. S. Melnikova’s opinion), but from the situation that had arisen in the Baltic region after the Pluss armistice of 1583.

Russian silver coins of 1825 with initials НГ under the eagle belong to the outstanding monuments of the 1825 Interregnum. All catalogues of Russian coins, both old and modern, refer this coinage of the St. Petersburg mint to the reign of Alexander I. Meanwhile it turns to have been the first minting production of Nikolay I, which is proved in the article.

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