Message:

<p>[QUOTE=&quot;dougsmit, post: 905220, member: 19463&quot;]The problem as I see it is you took several times as long to describe the process as it took the mint team to do them. First, &quot;the minter&quot; is a concept from the middle ages. Ancient coins are thought to be the product of a team working extremely quickly. One man (the big guy) does nothing but swing the hammer. We are probably talking about a large hammer since those paper thin slivers of silver did not come along for hundreds of years after the process began. One man placed the prepared blank in place on the lower die. Since most issues were struck on heated flans, this was a tong job. The third guy held the top die in place (hopefully also with tongs) while the hammer man did his thing. </p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>There is evidence suggesting that some teams actually had two different reverse dies alternating in use over the same anvil die. This allows for the fact that the smaller top die would heat up and benefit from the added seconds of cooling.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>We do not know how the coins were removed from the dies but I suspect that most would just fall out and could be collected from the ground after cooling. Working quickly and assuming the thing fell out might allow one in several thousand to stick. Ancient brockages are not rare but hardly common either. They are most common in the Roman Republican denarii and downright rare among bronze coins. They are also seen in the medieval Indian coins of the Western satraps as expected from lightweight coins made by the millions.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

Your name or email address:

Do you already have an account?

• No, create an account now.
• Yes, my password is:
• Forgot your password?

Stay logged in