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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;lehmansterms, post: 2488704, member: 80804&quot;]Doug and Sallant - first off, I&#039;m always eager to hear Doug&#039;s interpretations - and as usual he does not disappoint. My main &quot;contribution&quot; to the discussion at this point would be that so far as I know, the presumed ancient &quot;Limes Denarii&quot; were cast - so discovering a casting line around the rim or a sprue pontil does not seem like much of an indicator of modern(-ish) origin.&nbsp; There have been a significant number of clay &quot;battery molds&quot; discovered which had been created apparently by pressing genuine coins into clay, one side to each side of a coin-sized, round, flat piece of clay, and the impressed discs resulting were then arranged in clay &quot;wrappers&quot; resulting in an appearance rather like quarter rolls with an open groove down one side to allow the metal to be poured into the voids. I have seen photos of these molds. They tend to be found, so far as I know, in the same places the Limes pieces presumably are found before they find their way into lots of uncleaned Balkan-found coins. This provenance makes for many folks writing to various forums asking &quot;What the heck is this I found in my uncleaned coins?&quot;. </p><p>However, any solid evidence that they are of more modern manufacture would be of great interest. I wouldn&#039;t want to keep spreading theories which have been debunked. The theory that they were made to be something on the order of &quot;Grand Tour souvenirs&quot; for folks who probably couldn&#039;t tell the difference and wouldn&#039;t have cared if they could is very attractive, too.</p><p>The possibility also exists that we are talking about more than one sort of similar looking piece with separate origins - some ancient, some more modern - that merely tend to resemble each other. If so, this could encompass both Barry&#039;s explanation and the fact that I have seen many of them indistinguishable, except for their subjects, from the worn uncleaned ancient coins in the midst of lots of which they tend to be found.</p><p>[ATTACH=full]526373[/ATTACH] </p><p><a href="http://www.stoa.org/gallery/Chaos-and-the/03_Sept_Sev_Denarius_Pax" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://www.stoa.org/gallery/Chaos-and-the/03_Sept_Sev_Denarius_Pax" rel="nofollow">http://www.stoa.org/gallery/Chaos-and-the/03_Sept_Sev_Denarius_Pax</a> </p><p>This is more typical of the sort of pieces I associate with the term &quot;Limes Denarius&quot; and that seem mostly to be found in uncleaned lots.</p><p>Another, similar - [ATTACH=full]526377[/ATTACH]</p><p><a href="http://www.stoa.org/gallery/Chaos-and-the/02_Sept_Sev_Denarius_Jupiter" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://www.stoa.org/gallery/Chaos-and-the/02_Sept_Sev_Denarius_Jupiter" rel="nofollow">http://www.stoa.org/gallery/Chaos-and-the/02_Sept_Sev_Denarius_Jupiter</a>[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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