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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;medoraman, post: 1010685, member: 26302&quot;]I will try to find the passage in one of my books. It details a mint operating and the fact the feedstock was other nations or old coins from the Parthians. You do not see undertypes, since that was the point of hammering them out, to obliterate any undertype. I believe they saw other nations restriking of coinage, (Bar Kochba maybe), and saw the imperfect results. Also, like I said, metullurgy tests show trace elements tying many Sassanid coins to other issue. The Sassanids did have some silver, and imported raw silver from other places, so this isn&#039;t completely the way they did all of their coins. I do think it is how Ardashir started minting the drachms though. Not his Tets, which were made at Parthian mints and were debased.</p><p><br /></p><p>Maybe this practice went away in later Sassanid issues, I do not know. It is reasonable though that by then &quot;money&quot; was big and very thin, so of course all later rulers continue the practice. Its amazing how quickly people get used to a form of money, and anything else causes grave concern. Think how weird different shaped and colored bills would be to us today, and this is fiat money. Ancients constantly had to worry if the government was ripping them off, so any change was more important to them.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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