Center mark meaning?

What does center marks in the exact center of both sides of my ancient coin mean?

 

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I'll let the experts answer, but I think there are a couple of ideas (lathe, tongs).

 

Before striking the flan was trimmed and planed with a lathe like device that left the central pit. See the link below for much more than you wanted to know.
http://www.classicalcoins.com/flans1.html and 8 pages following it

You could start with page 6 but you would miss a lot.

 

Thank you, this was the site I was looking to link but I didn't have it bookmarked on my phone.

 

These dimples are particularly common on coins of Thrace, Moesia inferior, and Asia Minor.

The mint of Pautalia, in Thrace:





Marcianopolis, in Moesia Inferior:




Mesembria, in Thrace:



Anchialus in Thrace:





Philippopolis in Thrace:



Tomis in Moesia Inferior:



Nicaea in Bithynia:

 

Interesting.
I know that many early US coins have a center mark on them.
Didn't realize that applied to some ancients too.

 

The early US coins adjusted the silver value with a plug which is a different thing than these remnants from flan smoothing. If you like plugs there are some ancients that added little plugs of gold to a silver coin (I do not have one) and several bronze coins of Aksum that placed a bit of gold in a recess on the reverse that was not a plug because it did not go through the flan.