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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;dougsmit, post: 1823597, member: 19463&quot;]Once again we each need to ask, &quot;So what?&quot;&nbsp; We each will have an answer.&nbsp; To me, legend spacings and placements of letters in the field mean nothing unless they indicate something more significant.&nbsp; For example, if one mint always used a certain break and another used the opposite, I might want to distinguish between the two.&nbsp; If a star added in the field was accompanied by a half gram weight reduction of the coin, I might want to separate the two.&nbsp; If, however, the die cutter came back from lunch with indigestion and forgot where he was supposed to stop with the legend and move to the other side, I can live without making the distinction.&nbsp; Obviously we do not always know which differences had a meaning and which were random but I tend to place the burden of proof of requiring a separate listing on the coin.&nbsp; After a student is able to explain why the difference exists, I get interested.&nbsp; Before that, not so much.</p><p><br /></p><p>The exception to this is when the difference occurs in an area I consider my specialty and I maintain a hope of someday finding meaning to that difference.&nbsp; If there is a minor change in a coin of Septimius Severus, I want to know why.&nbsp; For example, the coin below is an absolute piece of junk and quite possibly unofficial but I had to have it because it is exactly the second denarius of Julia Domna where the split was DOM___NA not DO___MNA.&nbsp; I have a hundred and have seen thousands of these coins and was too stupid to buy the first one I saw years ago.&nbsp; As a result my penance was to pay a dealer I dislike more than I would ever think of paying for a piece of garbage (as if I would buy it for 2 cents otherwise).&nbsp; In this particular case the catalogs do not record legend splits so there is a great likelihood that no one else cares but I do.&nbsp; The same degree of unusual split on a coin of&nbsp; 199 other rulers would be met with my total apathy but here I am vulnerable.&nbsp; The rest of you might want to consider if your collection would be improved by adding a coin that is listed as rare/unique because of one letter or the placement of one letter.&nbsp; Would you pay ten times the normal price for this or would you rather have a coin that looked decent for the same money?&nbsp; There are several of us on this venue who have certain specialties that might cause us to take notice and pay.&nbsp; I even know what a couple of them are.&nbsp; Few are probably as irrational as mine which is obviously a meaningless error corrected or the work of a counterfeiter but it is a coin that is better off in my possession than in the junk pile where it really belongs.&nbsp; If I were to write a book cataloging the coins of Julia Domna, would I list this one under a separate number from the common version?&nbsp; Yes.&nbsp; Should I?&nbsp; Probably no. [ATTACH=full]299771[/ATTACH][/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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