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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;dougsmit, post: 3047289, member: 19463&quot;]The vast majority of ancient coins would be classified as errors if we used modern coin standards but this one actually makes the grade as an ancient error.&nbsp; The way I see it, the cause was not inattentive drunkeness bur working at breakneck speed to avoid being beaten for being a lazy slave by mint officials who were trying to crank out a million coins a month.&nbsp; After a coin was struck, it was removed from the dies and replaced with a new blank which would be struck by the hammerman as quickly as possible,&nbsp; If the worker tasked with removing and replacing fumbled a coin and did not clear it in rhythm, I can see where the hammerman may have already started another downstroke so the uncleared coin would get hit again but not properly aligned.&nbsp; What else got hit in the confusion, we can only imagine. </p><p><br /></p><p>In the 1930&#039;s, my mother was a nurse in a Chrysler drop forge plant.&nbsp; In the 1950&#039;s more than one old man came up to me and waved a stubby hand remnant at me and said, &quot;Your mother cut off my fingers!&quot;&nbsp;&nbsp; They were not unhappy.&nbsp; My mother was good at what she did.&nbsp; It took a few times before I realized that part.&nbsp; I suspect the slaves who held the dies and changed the blanks would have liked to have had my mother nearby when they had a bad day.&nbsp; Their stubs were probably cauterized and&nbsp; they were sent back to work.&nbsp; When I see a coin like this one, I think of this story.&nbsp; Industrial safety has changed a lot since the 1930&#039;s when men with missing fingers were considered clumsy rather than victims.&nbsp; I suspect the word for them in the time of Licinius was a step less pleasant.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>Mine is a Tetricus.&nbsp; I love errors and have shown quite a few here over the years but most collectors consider them defective and worth less than normal coins unless they are spectacular.&nbsp; There is a lot to learn about how coins were made from the evidence presented when things went wrong.&nbsp; Had we been there, I suspect we could have learned some vocabulary in these mint events using words they did not teach you in high school Latin. </p><p>[ATTACH=full]761660[/ATTACH][/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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