The Production of Ancient Coins

-Ronin Dunphy

All coins in the ancient world were struck by hand, (a method of production which survived until the 16^th century). The earliest coins, called ingots, were lumps of metal with a symbol impressed upon them. The impression of that symbol was the task of the coin makers. By striking a lump of metal into a carved mold the manufacturers (usually working in pairs) created a coin. (Wickens)

To enable its citizens to strike coins a city needed three things: an authority to refer to on the coin (king, emperor, senate), the metal from which to make the coins (bronze, silver, and occasionally gold), and the skills to refine that metal and carve the coins’ type and legend. Ancient coins were produced with a stamp and a hammer. The craftsman would place the already carved stamp (or die) below a blank metal piece and using the hammer punch the lump of metal. (Sutherland)

The availability of bullion challenged or encouraged a city’s coin production. Cities with copper, gold, or silver mined metal and manufactured coins independently. Without naturally occurring metallic resources some cities depended on metal goods to support coining. War booty was smelted and formed in blank discs for coin production. One extreme example of the need for raw metal for coinage is recorded during the Peloponnesian War. The Athenian government, desperate to pay its soldiers, melted seven statues of Athena Nike to mint eighty-four thousand state coins. (Sutherland)

After a city secured an amount of bullion the metal was smelted, refined, and made into blanks of appropriate weight. Greek and Roman coin manufacturers would control the levels of different metals within the coin blanks. As raw metals became less abundant coin producers could stabilize the amount of pure silver, for example, blended with alloys within a coin. (Wickens)

The blanks, also known as flans, also had to maintain a certain weight standard. Manufacturers poured the molten metal into measured clay moulds (some were open on top, while others had lids). It has been suggested that blanks made from more precious metals were weighed more carefully. Gold and silver blanks may have been made from measured gold or silver granules, which were placed in a coin-shaped dish and heated in a furnace. Earlier blanks were heated in lidded spherical moulds and produced more bulbous coins. The lidded mould was not airtight and allowed metal to seep through on either side of the blank during heating. Some of these side projections were not entirely clipped off of coins from the 5^th century BC and can be noticed today. By the Hellenistic period flan moulds were less spherical and produced thinner and wider coins. The more valued gold flans were cast individually. Cheaper silver and bronze flans were cast in mould series (for casting dozens of flans with one heating). The connecting metal between flans was clipped before the coins were minted. (Wickens)

Another method for creating blanks was to cast larger shapes from the molten metal to be cut into flan. Some coin manufacturers would cast a rod to be sliced into circular flan. These style blanks were found in the Athenian Agora, which served as a Roman mint. Square flans cut from thin sheets of metal, were also used in Roman coinage. They were hammered into more circular shapes during minting. After the blanks were shaped the solid metallic impurities were removed by scraping the blanks with a chisel or rinsing the blanks in acid. (Wickens)

The stamps or dies carved to shape the blanks were made from hardened bronze. Few ancient dies survive because they were destroyed by the state after usage to prevent counterfeiting. Historians rely on medieval dies and modern experiments in coin production to describe ancient dies. Also, we know that some dies were made of iron because of the rust residue found on some coins from the 6^th century AD. (Wickens)

Die artists carved the negative of their desired image as most coin images were made in relief. Greek artisans were well prepared for carving in negative on such a small scale from their years of carving seals. The dies were created with chisels and abrasive tipped drills. They ranged from quick low relief etchings to intricate deep relief carvings. Some more elaborate dies even contained an author’s mark. (Sutherland)

Most coins were decorated on the top and the bottom, that is, they were created with the impression of an obverse and a reverse die. The obverse die rested in an (usually wooden) anvil. The loose reverse die was placed in an iron punch. The iron punch was struck with a hammer twice and the coin was created. The obverse die contained the more important image (our ‘heads’), usually a ruler or deity. The obverse die was more deeply and intricately carved and lasted twice as long (producing near 15,000 coins) as the reverse die. The reverse die (the side that was struck with a hammer) wore out quickly and was either repaired or replaced. (Wickens)

Works Cited

Sutherland, CHV. The Emperor and the Coinage.

Wickens, Jere M. "The Production of Ancient Coins."

www.lawrence.edu/dept/art/buerger/essays/production.html