Message:

<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Gao, post: 842616, member: 19409&quot;]One thing you need to keep in mind is that each die was hand carved. Because of this, in general, catelogs differentiate coins only by what appear to be intentional differences by the die carver. Slight differences in pose are usually not considered a different type, as they&#039;re more often than not the result of the nature of production than they are intentional differences.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>This means that two coins of the same type can look very different, particularly if their dies were carved by different people at different skill levels. Off the top of my head, these are some of the major things you generally need to worry about when trying to figure out if a Roman coin is the same type as another (aside from obvious things like denomination and which emperor is on it):</p><p><br /></p><ul> <li>Whether the bust and figure on the reverse face left or right.</li> <li>Whether the legend matches (unless its just a misspelled version of the same legend, since spelling errors don&#039;t usually count as a difference).</li> <li>What the figure on the obverse is wearing (radiate crown, lauriate, diadem, cuirassed [wearing body armor], etc.)</li> <li>Major differences in position of the reverse figure(s) (i.e. sitting vs. standing vs. walking)</li> <li>The type and number of attributes (basically physical objects that are associated with the figure, like if anyone is holding a spear, globe, military standard, etc.)</li> </ul><p>What matters exactly can very from source to source, and sometimes even within the same book series (for instance, if I remember correctly, one volume of the RIC doesn&#039;t differentiate between large and small busts for Claudius Gothicus, but another does so for the coins of Diocletian and the Tetrarchy), and people often argue about whether some small differences were meaningful or not. Some might find this immense amount of variety and lack of clearly defined boundaries daunting, particularly if you&#039;re the sort who feels the need to have every single variation of something, but I find it rather interesting, and it&#039;s one of the reasons I like ancients.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

Your name or email address:

Do you already have an account?

• No, create an account now.
• Yes, my password is:
• Forgot your password?

Stay logged in