Constantine I and Other Roman Coins Slight Differences on Designs

[Hayes B]

I'm seeing a variety of slight differences on designs. Is this because of different mints & artists? I am Extremely new to old coins and I'd appreciate any, and all help!

[SC]

Welcome to forum Hayes.

Do you mean design differences on the same coin type?

A master design for each reverse type was sent to all mints, though we don't know exactly what form that took - drawing or textual description.  Form there each mint had a style.  So at some mints a figure might have a beard, at others not, at some a hat, at others not, etc.  Finally each artist had their own style.  So sometimes even when coins aren't from the same die we can say they are from the same hand - meaning the same individual engraver.

Shawn

[dougsmit]

Answering a slightly different question just in case this is what was meant:

Ancient coins were struck from dies that were engraved by hand rather than reproduced mechanically as is the case with modern coins.  As a result, a large issue which required hundreds of dies to make all the coins will show differences in style, lettering and many other factors which would be identical on modern coins.  This is made more obvious when coins were made from several mints since the dies would not be cut by the same people.  Also, since coins were struck by hand hammering, there are more differences even when using the same dies compared to machine made modern coins. Some were hit harder, softer, unevenly or in ways that would seem to be errors on modern coins.  There will rarely be two ancient coins that are exactly alike in every respect.