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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Roman Collector, post: 3694073, member: 75937&quot;]In an introductory book about Roman coins by John Fox,[1] he notes the existence of a wedge-cutting tool and illustrates what one must have looked like.[2]</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]989933[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>He illustrates a dupondius of Antoninus Pius that had been double struck at the mint and cut with such a device.[3]</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]989955[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>He notes the following about the possible purpose of such cuts:</p><p><br /></p><blockquote><p>Some other tool, presumably a punch, seems to have been used to cut a wedge shape out of the edge of certain coins. This can be confused with a flan crack. The cut may have been to prevent their becoming legal tender, prevent their leaving the mint or even, as the many wedge-cut coins found in the recent Bath excavations suggest, to convert them from secular to religious use. The cuts are curiously uniform in size and not uncommon. In my experience they occur on flawed coins, quite distinct from flan cracks. Perhaps in religion the Romans were as irreverent (or realistic) as the twentieth-century soldiers in garrison churches who used to place brass buttons in the collection plate. We do know they burgled temples. Lead <i>&#039;denarii&#039;</i> seem to have been good enough for Father Thames. In the same vein, flawed coin might do for Sulis Minerva. After all, she never spat them back.[4]</p></blockquote><p><br /></p><p>Here is a coin from my own collection that has been cut in this manner:</p><p><br /></p><p><img src="https://www.cointalk.com/attachments/faustina-jr-veneri-genetrici-as-jpg.931928/" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /></p><p><font size="3">Faustina II, AD 147-175.</font></p><p><font size="3">Roman Æ as, 6.93 g, 26.1 mm, 11 h.</font></p><p><font size="3">Rome, AD 147-150.</font></p><p><font size="3">Obv: FAVSTINAE AVG PII AVG FIL, Bust of Faustina II, draped and wearing band of pearls, right.</font></p><p><font size="3">Rev: VENERI GENETRICI, Venus standing facing, head left, holding up apple in right hand and holding child on left arm.</font></p><p><font size="3">Refs: RIC 1407; BMCRE p. 375 *; Cohen 238; RCV 4734; ERIC II 261.</font></p><p><font size="3">Notes: Die-match to specimens sold by CNG Jan. 7, 2014 and Künker Oct. 18, 2016.</font></p><p><br /></p><p>I am quite certain the wedge-shaped defect on the edge of this middle bronze of Faustina II is not a flan crack. It must have been produced by such a tool. I also note that this was produced under Antoninus Pius, the same issuing authority as the dupondius illustrated by Fox, above. The wedge-shaped defect is about the same size, too. However, in contrast to the double-struck example in Fox&#039;s text and his observation that such coins tend to be flawed, there doesn&#039;t seem to be anything wrong with it. Perhaps it was used for religious purposes. The religion theory seems to have more going for it than the notion that such wedge cuts were to mark a defective coin at the mint. After all, why go to such lengths when the mint worker simply needed to drop the faulty coin in the melting pot if it were intended to be destroyed.</p><p><br /></p><p>Does anyone know anything more about these wedge-cut coins and what the purpose of such a cut may have been? Is there a reference that goes into more detail or examines the evidence more critically?</p><p><br /></p><p><i>Post your coins that have wedge-cuts on the edges!</i></p><p><br /></p><p>~~~</p><p><br /></p><p>1. Fox, John F. <i>Roman Coins and How to Collect Them</i>. Longman, 1983.</p><p>2. Ibid., p. 99.</p><p>3. Ibid., p. 108.</p><p>4. Ibid., pp. 101-102.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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