I have dabbled a bit with ancient Roman coins. My vast experience is with US coins so forgive my lack of knowledge here. Some of these old Roman coins I have show such exquisite detail and others do not. I am confident that this has to do with the strength and accuracy of the man swinging the hammer, but it leads me to a quizzical interest of the hammering process itself. Would a minter simply place a lump of silver or bronze on a reverse die and swing the hammer with the obverse die into it?
From what I have read on different pages of forums is that there was a hinged die set up that was clamped and struck a few times to get strong enough details. I would like to hear from someone that has studied this more to be confident.
