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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;dougsmit, post: 2498830, member: 19463&quot;]Other than things that develop over time, lettering on &#039;Roman&#039; coins changed with influence from cutters from across the Empire who brought Greek and other native styles to the mix.&nbsp; I always felt lucky that Roman coins avoided cursives to a great degree compared, for example, to Sasanian coins which really are hard to force into one set of rules.&nbsp; I suspect a thorough study of just about any period would turn up a few characteristic letter forms only some of which we notice.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>One is the first century AD T which tends to have the top formed from two wedges meeting in the middle with a small gap between them rather than one solid top bar.&nbsp; This Tiberius shows several.</p><p>[ATTACH=full]529937[/ATTACH] </p><p><br /></p><p>Around the time of Gallienus it became fashionable to make N out of three separate bars with the diagonal one in the center unconnected.&nbsp; At the same time many letters like A and V that should (by our standards) connect on one end, don&#039;t. </p><p>[ATTACH=full]529941[/ATTACH] </p><p><br /></p><p>I see this as nothing all that different than the handwriting gap that now makes it hard for school children to read cursive letters from their grandmothers.&nbsp; The first kids who were not taught cursive past elementary school are now old enough to be teaching in those grades.&nbsp; I knew one teacher whose name began with a Q but she did not use the 2 shaped cursive Q shown on the wall chart in her room.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>These are not matters of right and wrong but simply evidence that &quot;The times, they are a changin&quot;.&nbsp; This change started a few thousand years before most of us will admit.&nbsp; I doubt many PhD candidates will be writing theses on coin lettering since studying texts on &#039;paper&#039; is so much more &#039;important&#039; but those legend letters are there for us to notice and enjoy.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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