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Message:: [QUOTE="Shea19, post: 3626853, member: 90981"]Thanks Doug, I agree with you.  Had not thought of the idea that a rough outline was made first and then finished off later by someone else, but I think that makes a lot of sense.  I can't think of any other explanation for why the portraits would retain the features of the last emperor...if they wanted to make a portrait of the new emperor that looks only like the new emperor, they were more than skilled enough to do it.  On my coin and on the ones you posted, they had to have gotten started with a portrait of Nerva.  I don't know how long of a process it was to make and engrave new dies, but if it could be done in a day or two, I don't think we'd see any coins like these.   I'll admit that I can't explain why we don't see any bronzes like this for Trajan, but it may be as simple as they waited a month or two into Trajan's reign before issuing new bronze coinage, but got started with issuing denarii right away. I think that it some cases, like in [USER=74968]@Orfew[/USER] 's excellent Vespasian, the new emperor took over and needed new coins to be issued immediately, so they just kept the portrait of the old emperor...I don't see any features of Vespasian at all in that coin, they may not have even known what he looked like yet, and probably didn't have enough time to find out.  Very interesting topic, but I agree that all we can do is guess.[/QUOTE]