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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;dougsmit, post: 4420502, member: 19463&quot;]I will point out that there are some coins if shown to several &#039;experts&#039; will not be classified the same by all.&nbsp; The worst product of the official mint might be no &#039;better&#039; than the best product of the ancient unofficial operation.&nbsp; My Trier shown above is such a coin.</p><p><img src="https://www.cointalk.com/attachments/rx6336bb2886-jpg.1105988/" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /></p><p><br /></p><p>This comes up most often with coins of the usurper Magnentius for whom we have a continuous range of very well made to laughable styles with no certain division between the two.&nbsp; I regret now having passed up some I saw years ago when I was only buying coins I considered &#039;proper&#039;. </p><p><br /></p><p>It is not all that unusual in the history of the hobby for coins first thought to be barbarous to later be classified as a branch mint.&nbsp; Nearly a hundred years ago (1921) a French numismatist Laffranci suggested that a group of denarii of Septimius Severus was similar in style to the tetradrachm mint in Alexandria so should be classified as a branch of the official system rather than as barbarous as previously believed.&nbsp; In the 1990&#039;s I bought more than one &#039;Emesa&#039; mint Septimius denarius from unillustrated lists of one favorite seller who always listed them as barbarous because he, then, was not familiar with the recognized branch mint.&nbsp; I have no doubt that further study will result in some other groups of &#039;different&#039; coins being upgraded to branch status by some numismatist not yet out of elementary school.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>We need to remember that we do not have written records pointing out that there were a certain number of official mints and where they were located but such classifications are made &#039;reverse engineering&#039; by studying a large number of coins using style and find spot data.&nbsp; This is not a good hobby for people who think all that needs to be known is available in one neat little package.&nbsp; We are dealing with a work in progress.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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