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Message:: [QUOTE="lehmansterms, post: 2892402, member: 80804"]Bear in mind that at the rate at which antoniniani were being struck at that time (some estimate up to a million a day at a major mint like Rome) dies were "burnt up" at a furious rate. I suspect that if, in the process of addition of lettering to a nearly complete die, an apprentice engraver sneezed or just straight-up slipped with the burin and made a small inappropriate scratch, there was no way they were going to scrap that die and start over.Also, when you're talking about the House of Valerian, you must understand that it wasn't until relatively recently that anyone made a really serious effort to wade through the astoundingly enormous body of surviving coins and make - if it's even possible - a truly exhaustive survey of types. RIC V, i, in particular is an example of how even the finest minds in numismatics at that time (late 1950's, early '60's) were overwhelmed in their attempt to produce a catalog of all the varieties the frantic action at the mints produced in the 250's-260's. "Not in RIC" really doesn't mean a great deal when you get into this body of material. To be able to say, for example, "Not in Göble" carries a much greater impact - but even that is not all that unusual and specialists are adding "newly discovered" variants all the time.[/QUOTE]