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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;DonnaML, post: 8204004, member: 110350&quot;]I believe that Mr. Berk is mistaken, unless he knows something that every other authority on these coins doesn&#039;t know. I have never, ever seen anyone else question the characterization of these numbers, and similar numbers on other coins beginning in the mid-3rd century (as on the coins of Philip I and his family issued for Rome&#039;s 1000th anniversary in AD 248), as officina numbers, indicating the city and workshop where particular dies were produced -- although presumably the ultimate purpose of using them was related to the &quot;control&quot; and supervision of mint officials. See, e.g., <a href="https://www.forumancientcoins.com/numiswiki/view.asp?key=mint%20marks" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.forumancientcoins.com/numiswiki/view.asp?key=mint%20marks" rel="nofollow">https://www.forumancientcoins.com/numiswiki/view.asp?key=mint marks</a>.</p><p><br /></p><p>To me, the use of the term &quot;control marks&quot; or die marks refers to something much broader than keeping track only of mints and workshops, and signifies the complex system of numbers and/or symbols used during the 64-year period from ca. 126 to 63 BCE on Roman Republican coins (mostly minted in Rome) for still-mysterious internal mint purposes -- sometimes involving hundreds of different numbers and/or symbols for a single issue, often with different symbols combined on the obverse and reverse.&nbsp; Obviously, far more than the number of workshops at a given mint!</p><p><br /></p><p>See the very interesting 2012 article by Robert Witschonke at <a href="https://brooklynsabbatical.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/witschonke-2012-die-marks-rbn.pdf" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://brooklynsabbatical.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/witschonke-2012-die-marks-rbn.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://brooklynsabbatical.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/witschonke-2012-die-marks-rbn.pdf</a>, summarizing the history of research on Roman Republican control marks and the various theories on their purpose, which appears to have been even more complicated than keeping track of the dozens or hundreds of different dies used for each issue. Witschonke&#039;s conclusion, in the last half of the article, specifically at pp. 80-81, suggests that &quot;the primary purpose of the die marks on Republican coinage was to trace plated or debased coins from circulation back to the mint employees responsible for their manufacture&quot;:</p><p><br /></p><p>&quot;[W]hat could be done if a plated or debased coin was discovered (perhaps because the bronze core had become visible) which was of such good style and execution that it appeared to have come from official dies? One could easily determine the moneyer responsible, since his name would appear on the coin. But how could one trace the actual mint employee responsible for the fraud (who might still be employed at the mint) ? Here the use of die marks may provide an answer.</p><p><br /></p><p>Hypothetically, let us assume that a striking crew at a particular anvil was required to continue to strike with a given pair of marked dies until one die or the other failed or was retired (on average, four to five days). The die marks for that group of coins could be recorded in the logs for that anvil, and the logs for the bags of coin produced. Furthermore, the log for each bag could trace its history, including the responsible weigher, adjuster, flan caster, refiner, assayer, and the original source of the bullion. If these procedures were scrupulously followed, and a plated or debased coin which appeared to be a mint product was found in circulation (even years after it was struck), the die marks on the suspect coin would allow mint officials, by checking the mint logs for that issue, to identify the anvil and striking crew involved, and the 4-5 bags of flans which had been struck with that combination of marks. Assuming these bags all came from the same batch of bullion, one would know the identities of all of the mint employees who had handled the bags, and could construct a complete list of suspects (who could then be monitored if they were still employed in the mint, and the identity of the culprit was not obvious).&quot;</p><p><br /></p><p>He also proposes explanations for why the practice began (the vast increase in production around 125 BCE, with a single anvil able to use up 65 to 80 dies per year, and strike 1.3 to 1.6 million coins, multiplying the almost limitless opportunities for fraud of various kinds), and why it eventually died out.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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