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Message:: [QUOTE="dougsmit, post: 1042151, member: 19463"]I wish I could tell you.  Between 348 and 350 AD, this mint produced more or less the same coins with and without the A's on both sides. RIC lists them as having the same weights but my example with the A is lighter than they suggest.  In most cases when these field letters appear or change there is also a weight standard change.  I wonder here if the A coins are all lighter and the RIC listing keeping them the same was a typo but I do not have other examples to weigh.  I would love to hear from anyone having one of these Lugdunum A horsemen with the weight of their coin.   Remember that Roman coins were made to close standards with the metal value of the coins matching the buying power of the denomination.  As a result inflation would cause the coins to get smaller with old ones either hoarded or called in and remelted.  It is possible that the alloy of the metal was changed and the letter separated old and new stock.  There are theories but not every step in the process is understood.  Things were happening so fast in the Roman economic system during this period that it is more poorly understood than most.  We don't even have a firm handle on what the denominations were called in every case.[/QUOTE]