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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;dougsmit, post: 2281335, member: 19463&quot;]I have Butcher and Ponting&#039;s 1997 article when they were drilling coins of Septimius Severus.&nbsp; I have not seen this new work.&nbsp; My earlier objection is that the study is based on assumptions of consistent metal supply and a few coins drilled are taken as representative of all.&nbsp; In the case of Septimius, we had several mints operating in a wartime environment.&nbsp; Looking at my sampling of about 500 coins, I see a wide variation in metal appearance.&nbsp; I see differences in the coins of one year from those of a year later, from those of a different mint and from those of minor persons (Caracalla Caesar) from primaries (Septimius/Domna).&nbsp; Should I see differences between coins made from Eastern silver, recycled silver or silver processed by the night shift?&nbsp; The questions here come down to how we know whether the core drill advantage shows us anything beyond averages.&nbsp; Are averages really valuable?&nbsp; That depends on what numbers were selected to be averaged. </p><p><br /></p><p><a href="http://www.newstrategist.com/store/index.cfm/feature/57_15/50-facts-about-the-average-american.cfm" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://www.newstrategist.com/store/index.cfm/feature/57_15/50-facts-about-the-average-american.cfm" rel="nofollow">http://www.newstrategist.com/store/index.cfm/feature/57_15/50-facts-about-the-average-american.cfm</a></p><p>The above link describes 50 averages for Americans.&nbsp; Of them, I subscribe to 24 plus or minus a couple that would require more study to know with certainty.&nbsp; I am somewhat average in height and weight but a tad old and slightly ethnically diverse (we might call that a European mutt) rather than 100% from one country or with grandparents from four different continents.&nbsp; I suspect many of you are also similarly described by those numbers but may participate mainly in the 26 numbers I did not.&nbsp; If you are also a 24, do we resemble each other?&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>Until the study has been done on a million coins and records are split by fine divisions of mint or date or circumstance I fail to appreciate the drilling of coins.&nbsp; I wonder if equal accuracy, on average, would be obtained by comparing destructive assays of a few coins but past practices caused people to destroy only ugly coins so their results were not representative.&nbsp; The cores may be the best answer but I suspect that their results are open to being made invalid by interpretation and averaging.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>I would like to see what they have to say about flan production.&nbsp; I hope they allow for differences we see in flans by the same factors that make averages less than informative in assay.&nbsp; Are the studies presented broken down in several ways or just &#039;Galba&#039; and &#039;Otho&#039;?&nbsp; It would cost me $138 to find out.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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