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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;John Anthony, post: 2161292, member: 42773&quot;]The Gallienus ant with Pax reverse is very nice. A collector of moderns might look at that coin and see all of its faults: a soft reverse and irregular, cracked flan (we call planchets &quot;flans&quot; in this neck of the woods, not to be confused with the Mexican dessert). But for unknown reasons, quality control at the Rome mint deteriorated during Gallienus&#039; reign. Quite a few of these coins are struck way off center on terribly ragged flans, and suffer from quite a bit of corrosion.</p><p><br /></p><p>Yours has a strong bust, complete legends, and smooth surfaces. You can&#039;t ask much more of the billon ants of Gallienus. Here&#039;s one of mine which is not as nice as yours, but nevertheless represents a mint state coin - this is pretty much what it looked like when it came out of the dies, except the color is darker now.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]416193[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>The quality of minting didn&#039;t improve significantly until the reign of Aurelian. Perhaps he crucified a handful of the mint&#039;s slaves to improve morale.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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