I have dabbled a bit with ancient Roman coins. My vast experience is with US coins so forgive my lack of knowledge here. Some of these old Roman coins I have show such exquisite detail and others do not. I am confident that this has to do with the strength and accuracy of the man swinging the hammer, but it leads me to a quizzical interest of the hammering process itself. Would a minter simply place a lump of silver or bronze on a reverse die and swing the hammer with the obverse die into it?
From what I have read on different pages of forums is that there was a hinged die set up that was clamped and struck a few times to get strong enough details. I would like to hear from someone that has studied this more to be confident.
Randy, A recent post has a video, a short one, illustrating the basic hammering process for coins. I thought it was very interesting. “Medieval coins struck for me at York”, by @calcol on Nov. 9, 2025. He visited the Jorvik Viking Center in York, England…Spark
Randy, Except for very early ancient coins, the coiners did not strike a lump of metal with the dies. Instead, the metal was melted and poured into planchet forms. Most often the forms had multiple planchet depressions connected by short shallow channels. If you look at the edge of many ancient coins, you can see where one or more channels connected. A planchet was placed on one fixed die, the coiner held the other die on the top, then swung the hammer. Some ancient coins were cast, not struck. Mike
The main reason I collect ancient coins is the natural characteristics that can only be achieved by making them by hand. I'm fascinated by the ancient minting process and I have many coins in my collection that reflect the unique process: Some web sites that describe how ancient coins were manufactured: https://www.thecollector.com/ancient-roman-coins-how-were-they-made/ https://www2.lawrence.edu/dept/art/BUERGER/ESSAYS/PRODUCTION.HTML
That's a great group of coins for that purpose! Thanks for sharing the images! I have a few thoughts re: the video, but I'll just share one which to me seemed most odd: In ancient numismatics I've heard/read the terms "flans" and "planchets" MANY times, but I don't recall hearing/reading the word "blanks" as was used a few times in the video.
Well I have certainly learned from @calcol and @-monolith- videos exactly what I was searching for. Ancient coining is much the same as modern coining with an anvil die and a striking die. It was a much more sophisticated process than I had dreamed up in my mind. Thanks!
Would be nice if everyone used standard terminology, but that’s not the case. The pic below is from no less a place than the British Museum in London. Sorry for the low res, but this pic was cut from the corner of a much larger pic that focused on something else. And yeah, the British Museum calls them blanks or flans. Mike
Yes, that's why I was surprised that the video on ancient Roman coin production used the word "blanks". So true! For sure! But to clarify, (and forgive the detailed semantics), the British Museum tag's conclusionary sentence ends by stating that a coin blank is actually "...called a 'flan'". DITTO! :-D
I don't think you can generalize that all hammered coins were made a certain way. The techniques varied from civilization to civilization, through different time periods, and even regionally.
In my opinion, the quality of the Roman coins really slipped with emperor Constantine. The portraits were far more crude, and really only resembled the the people depicted on them. The previous Roman portraits were often pretty close to images on the statues of the emperors and their family. Of course the coins were quite debased by the 230s.
You can really track the decline and fall of the Roman Empire in the declining quality of its coins over time.
Were any ancient planchets made using the technique which was used by the medieval coiner? Ingots of gold or silver were formed and then hammered flat to the desired thickness using leather sheets to even out the pressure. Then the planchets were cut out of the sheets with large sheers. The planchets were mostly round or oval, but they could be in other shapes.
