As a collector, I should probably know this, but if you ask Chris, I'm not a collector but a complainer..I'm poor..I buy when I can..my wife does the books, etc. Anyway, I am curious as to what determines a new coin type and what determines a "variant". Do the rules only apply to obverse?
Coming from a Medieval kind of place, it varies widely, not only from one region, but (maybe only more importantly) from one reference to the other. Only most emphatically with medievals, numismatics as a discipline will always be playing 'catch up' with whatever the latest hoard has to say. For one example, just over the last year, one hoard in the UK substantively demonstrated that AElfred the Great was was coissuing pennies, as of the later 9th century, with the reigning king of Mercia (west-central England). ...Before which, no one had a clue that that had ever happened! ...Or if they did, it was on the level of speculation; as such, unpublished, at least in terms of (Snort) standard (Other Snort) references. (My access to operant journalistic literature is online; as such, effectively random.)
I'm not sure I understand your question correctly, but if I do, they certainly apply to both sides of a coin. Two coins with identically-designed obverses but completely different reverse designs are always considered to be different types. But I don't think there are generally-accepted "rules," or a standard definition, of how different one design has to be from another to constitute a different or new type or variation or even sub-type. Some people are lumpers, some are splitters! I think most people agree that two identical coins are different varieties if one has a left-facing bust and the other has a right-facing bust. Or one is bareheaded and the other laureate. But I don't think everyone agrees on whether they should be classified as different varieties if one has the obverse bust draped, and the other is draped and cuirassed. Or one is completely beardless, and the other has a mustache or a neckbeard or hair along the jawline. It can be difficult or impossible to tell if differences like that are the product of the mint administration's intention to create a new variation, or simply reflect the whims of two different engravers in the same mint in creating dies for what's supposed to be the same type. Never mind differences in the same type among different mints. The same is true of differences on the reverse. And all of this applies to slight differences in the legends as well. (For example, an abbreviated vs. an unabbreviated word in two otherwise identical legends.)
@DonnaML, you're just That Good! (Edit: ) Did you study Latin, before Law School? Getting that vibe from the prose.
Never. Nor in law school, or thereafter, except for the few dozen Latin phrases one learns to use on occasion over the years. from a fortiori to nunc pro tunc to expressio unius est exclusio alterius. Plus, of course, the fake Latin phrases like illegitimi non carborundum, which is always good advice.
...Obviously good enough to fool me. (Comparably superficial exposure to Latin.) ...After posting that last, I was starting to wonder whether I was mistaking your (ostensibly Latinate) prose, per se, for the more structural elements of your argument. In either case, the elements of (...oh, No: Alliteration Alert: ) clarity, concision and cogency were leading me in that direction.
As DonnaML has noted, there aren't any rules. And this can create a lot of confusion as different authors and cataloguers use different approaches. Because ancient coins are hand struck from hand-carved dies variation can include intentional and meaningful differences, intentional but not meaningful differences, or differences based solely on the hand of the individual engraver. People's approaches often differ depending on whether you are approaching the question from the way the coins look to us today versus the way they were produced. For example, two nearly identical coins with obverse legend differences like IMP CAES TRAIANO AVGVSTVS and IMP TRAIANO AVG are clearly different to look at. Based on what we know about Roman coin production the difference also very likely had a production significance - likely one of series and date - where one legend came after the other. These two coins would be given different numbers in most reference works. By contract, if the legends were IMP TRA - IANO AVG and IMP TRAI - ANO AVG, with the only difference being where the legend broke over the top of the bust, there would still be a clear visible difference, but it very likely had no meaning in the ancient world. It is unlikely that such a variation signified a difference in mint or series or date. Some catalogues would give those coins different numbers, others the same number with perhaps a simple note. [This is just a made up example. What mattered and what didn't matter varied from era to era and type to type.] If you want to examine the coinage from the perspective of ancient production then the challenge is in determining what detail is intentional and important and what is not. If you simply want to catalogue every visible difference that can be seen on the coins then you don't have to wrestle with that question. SC
