DIE SHARING

[Ocatarinetabellatchitchix]

Have you ever heard of the system of "die-sharing" which existed between several cities of Asia Minor? This is the use of the same obverse die which was used to mint coins from different cities. The first occurrence of this system dates from the reign of Trajan; it gains momentum under Marcus Aurelius; under Commodus, fourteen examples are known. This organization in workshops, centralized or itinerant, will become common from the time of Septimius Severus. 

In the seventies, Konrad Kraft has suggested the theory of the traveling workshop or even engravers arriving in one city to perform their duty, and once the contract was completed, they traveled to another city with unexhausted obverse dies during the last production, so that they can use them again in the new city where they arrived. Maybe in the future we’ll know more about how the system was working, but in the meantime, we can have a lot of fun in comparing the same obverse dies used in different places in the third century.

Here are some of them:

Aegae, Aeolis  Time of Severans

Cyme, Aeolis

Now two examples from the time of Gordian III: 

Phocaea, Ionia

Smyrna, Ionia

 

And why not one die used in three different cities (Gordian III Medallion)

Odessus, Thrace

Tomis

Markianopolis

And then a fun exercise: examining the wear of these specimens, could you tell in what city the obverse die was used first ? 
 

Sadly I do not own any of these coins, so I can only present you two examples from my collection, two die-matching obverses easy to identify because of their legend error (PO instead of PIO). They show the two different reverses used for the Victorinus deified issues (CONSACRATIO and PROVIDENTIA AVG). It is believed they were produced at the same mint of Cologne.

 

I’d be interested to see your die-matching coins. Please feel free to show-off!

[Orange Julius]

Great post! I learned out die sharing between coins of different cities while researching this coin:

Attaleia

Commodus, AD 180-192.
Æ24, 5.1g, 12h; LYDIA, Attaleia.
Obv.: AV KO-MOΔOC; Laureate bust right.
Rev: ATTA-ΛEAT-ΩN; eagle standing facing on ground line, head left, wings spread.

Not my coins below:

Thyateira

[Ocatarinetabellatchitchix]

31 minutes ago, Orange Julius said:

while researching this coin:

Very nice example Josh.  Thanks for sharing with us !

[Roman Collector]

Syedra and Side are thought to have used a system of shared die-engravers, if not dies themselves. These two coins are so similar in style that they had to have been engraved by the same artist, but cannot have shared a die because they are of different sized modules. See here for more information.

Syedra:

Side:

[Factor]

The die sharing phenomenon was not limited to Asia Minor. My friend Yoav Farhi and I just coauthored a paper in Israel Numismatic Research discussing die links between cities Gaza and Raphia in Judaea: https://www.academia.edu/95379856/Farhi_and_Kaplun_2022_Gaza_and_Raphia_under_Commodus_Another_Numismatic_Connection_INR_17

I cannot share the whole paper here due to copyright, however if someone is interested let me know, I can send it directly. 

Gaza also briefly shared a set of dies with Eleutheropolis: https://www.uni-muenster.de/Ejournals/index.php/ozean/article/view/3670/3647

 

[seth77]

2 hours ago, Factor said:

The die sharing phenomenon was not limited to Asia Minor. My friend Yoav Farhi and I just coauthored a paper in Israel Numismatic Research discussing die links between cities Gaza and Raphia in Judaea: https://www.academia.edu/95379856/Farhi_and_Kaplun_2022_Gaza_and_Raphia_under_Commodus_Another_Numismatic_Connection_INR_17

I cannot share the whole paper here due to copyright, however if someone is interested let me know, I can send it directly. 

Gaza also briefly shared a set of dies with Eleutheropolis: https://www.uni-muenster.de/Ejournals/index.php/ozean/article/view/3670/3647

 

Great article that doesn't take things for granted, thank you.

 

As for die sharing between cities, I think that for Thracia and Moesia Inferior a possibility raised is that a mint operated issues for a few cities, probably on contract. That means that either dies were made and sent to the contractant city/town to use locally, either a number of coins were made and shipped to the contractant city, either mint professionals traveled under contract to issue coin in the said city/town. Something similar might have happened with Moesia Superior and Dacia and their respective coinage, the COL VIM and PROVINCIA DACIA. The most interesting of these joint ventures is the possibility that Bosporan mint staff might have operated the coinage of Olbia, Tyras and even as far south as Istros for a few years. And even beyond that, the dies of Tyras and Istros seem to have been made by the same craftsmen. To make things even more interesting, local numismatists in Romania and Bulgaria identified cast copies of local coinage that seem to have been made by ad-hoc minting operators, chiefly at Durostorum in the 220s and late 240s. Of course the unofficial copies from the late 240s likely relate to the Gothic invasion of 248-250 that saw the destruction or destitution of many Black Sea and Balkan minting cities. Between the Gothic incursions and the penetration of Imperial radiates after 253, it seems that cash shortages were dealt with by cast copying earlier provincial coins.

[Kaleun96]

I think this is sufficiently closely related to "die sharing", though perhaps less formal than in the case you mention.

It's known that some engravers of Alexandrine tetradrachms either travelled to other mints to engrave dies or sent their dies to other mints for use. There's two examples of this between Sidon and Tyre from some of the very first Alexander tetradrachms ever struck, circa 333/2 BC.

For this first tetradrachm from Sidon, the engraver of this obverse die (Newell 'Sidon' obv. die I) also engraved a second obverse die (not known to Newell) that was then used at Tyre to strike the first Alexandrine tetradrachm type at that mint.

At the same time, it appears this obverse die (Newell 'Ake' obv die II) was also transferred from Sidon to Tyre, along with its engraver, to strike coins of the first type at Tyre. This obverse die was only used for a brief period in Sidon before travelling with its engraver to Tyre, where the engraver then produced a further four obverse dies. Following this, it appears the engraver moved to Tarsos and then finally Arados, according to a paper by Lloyd Taylor on the Sidon and Tyre mints.

[Deinomenid]

Die sharing was quite common in Greek Italy. Especially between a mother city and a  daughter or related entity, such as Nola from Neopolis  in the 4th century  BC, sometimes to a jarring extent, where the barbarizing tribes (sorry Rome,  but broadly you lot -  barbaric tribes) would be "striking Neapolitan types and sharing Neapolitan obverse dies ; on some coins struck from official obverse dies of high artistic quality the reverse legend is so blundered (by the barbaric tribes!) as to make attribution to one mint or the other quite uncertain".

Kroton was similar. Tarentum and  Herakeia seem to have shared a  number of  diobol structure too.

Some of the sharing gets so complicated it is hard to  discern what happened when, especially after the Campanians starting adding owls perched upon the olive wreath of the helmet of a Neopolitan design itself borrowed from  Thurium.  This was then taken by Nola and Allifae, and for much of the output by volume of Hyria, with several obverse dies used  both Nola and Hyria. and  then Hyria began chiselling  its name on them, sometimes in Greek, sometimes their own script.

 Neapolis and Phistelia shared a copied coin  itself clearly borrowed from  Kimon in Syracuse. .

 

But here's an actual example  - facing head of Hera from Kroton (my coin) whose design they borrowed  but with identical  die-sharing obverses  from Hyria and Fenseris (coins from Kraay, from whom much of this  information was originally pilfered (learned).

 

 

 

[Sulla80]

Die sharing touched on with a useful link to a 2021 article from George Watson in this meandering post: https://www.sullacoins.com/post/roman-provinces-corruption

with a coin from Kibyra which has no shared die (at least not that I find).

Edited April 18, 2023 by Sulla80

[Severus Alexander]

Great topic!  I know Kenneth Harl is working on a paper looking at this in detail for some of the Moesian and Thracian mints.

Here's a variation on the theme.  I've had the following year 1 Nicomedia follis of Heraclius for decades:

Last year I spotted this year 2 which was an obverse die match, and snapped it up. This demonstrates that obverse dies were used across the year-change boundary.

Edited April 16, 2023 by Severus Alexander

[Ocatarinetabellatchitchix]

Wow ! First time I ever see such an example… thanks for sharing Thomas.

[Broucheion]

Hi All,

Some additional reading:

Dario Calomino's 2013 paper "Die-Sharing in Moesia Inferior under Gordian III" at https://www.academia.edu/5792309/

George Watson's 2015 paper "The system of coin production in Roman Asia Minor: new light on an old problem" at
https://www.academia.edu/36441774/
and from 2016 "Die Sharing in Asia Minor: another phantom link" at
https://www.e-periodica.ch/cntmng?pid=smb-001%3A2016%3A66%3A%3A181
and in 2021 "The Development and Spread of Die Sharing in the Roman Provincial Coinage of Asia Minor" at
https://www.ajaonline.org/article/4243. This last one is behind a paywall if you are not a subscriber or otherwise have access to AJA

Yoav Farhi's 2021 paper "Eleutheropolis and Gaza: A Newly Discovered Die Sharing in Roman Palestine"
https://www.uni-muenster.de/Ejournals/index.php/ozean/article/view/3670/3647 . First page only.

There are a few known instances of Ptolemaic coins from cities in the Levant that also shared dies.

- Broucheion

Edited April 17, 2023 by Broucheion