A few days ago, an eight year old girl from Israel made it to the news because she had found a coin. Big deal? Well ... That girl (named Hallel) found the piece, liked it, and kept it. A couple of weeks later, her sister saw the coin, the two told their father about it, and Dad asked an expert who is a historian but not a numismatist. This guy said the coin that Hallel found may be a half shekel minted shortly before the year 70 (Jewish Revolt) but since only one side was legible, providing more precise info would be tough. Still, finding such an old coin from a historically important period is something. And something that will be reported. The headline in the Times of Israel newspaper for example was "8 year old girl stumbles upon ultra-rare 2000 year old half shekel". Wow. Great. Even Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu posted something about the find on Facebook. Except ... Yesterday it turned out that Hallel's find is a souvenir piece which children can on certain occasions make at the Israel Museum. It is an exact replica of an ancient half shekel but made from a lead alloy, and one sided only. This is the original story, with an updated intro ... http://www.timesofisrael.com/8-year-old-girl-stumbles-upon-ultra-rare-2000-year-old-half-shekel/ ... and a link to the new article about the find: http://www.timesofisrael.com/too-good-to-be-true-8-year-olds-rare-coin-not-an-ancient-artifact/ Christian
Oh my. How embarrassing for the newpaper, the PM, and everyone who neglected to get a numismatist's opinion first!
Oh man, I feel sorry for the little girl, but not anyone else really. Looks like some of those other kids are having fun striking those coins however, that's pretty cool.
Interesting article! Poor little girl! I hope an Israeli collector or dealer gives her a real ancient Judaean coin, even if not a rare one.
That is my first thought also. Perhaps, just perhaps, she will benefit from this by learning what happens when you get you sister, father and adults involved when their first question is how much it is worth. At least they didn't throw her in jail for not reporting it to the right authorities. I hope she grows up to be Director of Antiquities now that she has had a valuable first lesson in looking before you leap. We get that here on CT. Those who have been here a while can recall more than one inquiry from someone who found a replica from Readers' Digest ads in Grandpa's desk and were disappointed it was not worth even a few dollars.
Wow, you have the rare 1919 ancient shekel, with modern Arabic numerals and all. Those ancient Israelites were awesome time travelers. So, is it for sale? I'll offer one Billion for it. The downside is you'll have to exchange it before November 4, 1925 for the new Reichsmark notes, otherwise it will be worthless. But that shouldn't be much of a problem for time traveling Israelites.
Sorry, Sallent,The Shekel is part of my Biblical Sunday School set, struck in the Netherlands by the Royal Dutch Mint in 1919. Reichsmark, Rentenmark, OstMark, Deutsche Mark, Marky Mark all obselete since 2002. We now use the Euro instead , as one happy European family
Well, some people are never happy and always prefer what they perceive as the "good old days". Has been like that for a couple of centuries at least. Christian
Am I the only one just a little offended by the coin selections for this Sunday School group? The quadrans is there because the Bible tells us that the coins used in the Widow's Mite story were worth 'two for a quadrans'. The quadrans intended was not a Republican hunk of bronze but the tiny Roman fraction of the 1st century AD. Teaching Sunday School is not a license to make it up as you go along.
I remember the good old days of Sunday school back during my youth as a Southern Baptist. Unfortunately I got expelled from Sunday school for questioning the literal interpretation of a particular story, and expelled from church a month later for using foul language at the pastor when he took the youth's budget for a mission trip (which we had raised ourselves with fundraising) and used it instead for a down payment on a new house for himself, saying the youth were not ready to go on a mission trip. But that's ok, 3 months later I found out he held the congregation at gunpoint when the cops came to arrest him for inappropriate relations with a minor. My bad behavior meant my parents and I were at another church when that went down, and at least they were no longer mad at me for getting us thrown out of the other church after that. And some people still insist church isn't interesting
Absolutely! The coin the author of Mark had in mind was more like this: The more interesting question to me is how to best translate an ancient language which references ancient and obsolete coin denominations into language the modern reader finds meaningful. One could translate literally, which conveys to the reader that the events which took place happened a long time ago in a far away place, but in this case you'd have to footnote what the coin denominations meant in order to give the reader some context. Mark 12:42 (which was then incorporated into the third gospel by the author of Luke) reads: καὶ ἐλθοῦσα μία χήρα πτωχὴ ἔβαλεν λεπτὰ δύο, ὅ ἐστιν κοδράντης This is very literally translated as "And one destitute widow came and threw in two lepta, which is a quadrans." Then what do you put in your footnotes? You can't just translate it into modern cash-equivalents, because your bible translation will still be in use 50 years (or more) down the road and such cash-equivalents will soon be rendered useless. So you can't translate (my apologies to the King James translation committee) "denarius" as "penny." I would footnote it as follows: The quadrans was the smallest coin in the Roman Imperial monetary system. It was valued at 1/64 of a denarius. In turn, the denarius was a silver coin representing approximately a day's wages for an agricultural worker for hire. The other option is no better; that is to translate more loosely, so that footnotes are not required, such as: "And one destitute widow came and threw in two small bronze coins, worth less than a dollar." That doesn't seem like a bad translation now, but keep in mind that in 1950, the translator would have had to say "worth less than a dime" to convey the same cash-equivalent. You'll note, too, that I have translated πτωχὴ as "destitute," when many translations render it as "poor." However, the Greeks had two words for "poor." One designated a lesser degree of poverty, living from paycheck to paycheck and barely getting by -- πενία. Another indicated absolute destitution, even beggary or mendicity -- πτωχεία. It is the latter which is used by the author of Mark. The woman was more than just poor--she was reduced to begging. The amount she gave was more than just a few cents, too. It was about 1/64th of the daily wage of a minimum wage worker. Therefore, a translation that would only be valid at the present time would be: "And a homeless bag-lady came and threw in a dollar."
Likely, she gave all she had. Something most of us 'modern' folks' would balk at. Can't say I'd do the same, but the Lady had faith.......
Luke 21:1-4New King James Version (NKJV) The Widow’s Two Mites 21 And He looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the treasury, 2 and He saw also a certain poor widow putting in two mites. 3 So He said, “Truly I say to you that this poor widow has put in more than all; 4 for all these out of their abundance have put in offerings for God,[a] but she out of her poverty put in all the livelihood that she had.”
This set was probably put together by a commision of wise men of the church, clearly they made a mistake by addding an early Roman Republic Quadrans from circa 200 BC. Too bad they didn't ask Doug Smit for advice Thank you Roman Collector for the info. the value would be more like 10-12 leptons instead of 2 leptons.
