The Silver Coins of “Prince Simeon’s People”: An Unknown Part of the Numismatics of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania / Srebrne monety „ludu księcia Symeona” – nieznana część numizmatyki Wielkiego Księstwa Litewskiego

Yuriy Zayonchkovskiy, Independent Numismatist-Researcher

ORCID: 0000-0002-7457-1792

Andrei Boiko-Haharin, National Bank of Ukraine: Kyiv

ORCID: 0000-0003-4610-3665

The Silver Coins of “Prince Simeon’s People”: An Unknown Part of the Numismatics of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania

Abstract: The paper sheds light on the countermarked imitations of silver coins of the Jochid Khan Said-Ahmad II (1433–1452). The authors identified 38 punches that were used for countermarking, allowing us to say with confidence that the size of this countermarked issue was quite large. The countermarked imitations of the dangs of Said-Ahmad II have not previously been examined in the numismatic literature. This is due to the rarity of these coins, which were previously known only from occasional, single finds. Such countermarks have rarely been published on the pages of Internet numismatic forums and have received the conditional name of “inverted Allah”.

These countermarks were a “free imitation” of the Lithuanian Columns: they all have three prongs facing upwards. We suggest that these countermarked coins belong to the “Tatars of Said-Ahmad”, who minted them in order to meet the needs of local money circulation (mostly on the territory of the left bank of the Dnieper River). They issued their silver coins in the 1450s (and, perhaps, a little later), deliberately imitating the dangs of Said-Ahmad II.

We arrive at the conclusion that these numismatic artefacts were minted (with a high probability) in the ulus of “Prince Simeon’s people” – the last territorial acquisition of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

Key words: Prince Simeon’s people, Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Said-Ahmad II, dang imitations, countermarked coins

DOI: https://doi.org/10.52800/ajst.1.17.a10

Zayonchkovskiy, Y. and Boiko-Haharin, A. 2022. “The Silver Coins of “Prince Simeon’s People”: An Unknown Part of the Numismatics of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania”, Notae Numismaticae – Zapiski Numizmatyczne 17: 235–246. DOI: https://doi.org/10.52800/ajst.1.17.a10