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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;iPen, post: 2304966, member: 69760&quot;]I&#039;ve seen some early 20th century examples, but are there any older examples from anywhere around the world? What&#039;s the earliest?</p><p><br /></p><p>Similarly, I&#039;m wondering if early (or <i>the</i> earliest) proof examples exist as &quot;specimens&quot; for practical purposes, where coins were made as proofs so that their details can be seen clearly as they competed with other proposed designs before a final design was ultimately chosen.</p><p><br /></p><p>Or, perhaps <i>all</i> early examples of a given coin were made as proofs because the coin press / hammering mechanisms were relatively crude from today&#039;s machinery; so, sufficiently detailed designs for practical relief/incuse design durability and recognition of the coins for decades may have required multiple presses / hits. Though perhaps this simply means that most or all of them following this process are &quot;proof-like&quot;.</p><p><br /></p><p>Or, maybe the &quot;first strikes&quot; were proofs as an introductory public service announcement to a given state&#039;s newly designed coins; whereby, every other coin that followed were business strikes, mainly because the same dies were used year after year, until the dies went beyond cracking (I&#039;m sure they repaired many of the dies and filled in the cracks). Then perhaps this means that the very first year of the die&#039;s use is a proof, given that multiple presses/hammerings from immaculate dies would be used to present the new coins to officials and the public.</p><p><br /></p><p>Do any of the experts suspect that proofs were made as early as Ancient Greece, with one of the examples being the ultra high relief, deep incuse Aegina Stater coins as shown below (just look at that turtle - the relief is thicker than the base&#039;s!)? Or even earlier than that?</p><p><br /></p><p><img src="http://i1228.photobucket.com/albums/ee451/kovacs22/Aegina%20Stater_zpswnmbi5kh.png" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" />[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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