Mintmarks Bibliography

[Emanuele Giulianelli]

I need a good bibliography about Mintmarks in Roman Coins, every good book or article you know about it, focusing to symbols in fields too.
Thanks a lot!

Emanuele

[Matthew W2]

Failmezger (2002) "Roman Bronze Coins" is pretty good for the period it covers (294-364 AD).

The article on Forum is very helpful too:

http://www.romancoin.info/#Roman%20Mints%20and%20Officina

Can you be more specific about what you need?

[Emanuele Giulianelli]

in fields, in mintmark we see a lot of symbols (crescents, stars, dot etc)... is there any explaining of the meanings of some of these symbols?

[Matthew W2]

I see what you mean. Yes. the Failmezger book does have a chapter on that.

The short answer is that there is no short answer.

Paraphrasing from Failmezger: Outside of the letters of the mintmark itself (including any honorifics - SM - or officina marks) many of the marks in the exergue were likely control marks to indicate the minting sequence. I assume this refers to when a particular batch of coins was made - the first batch might have one mark, a batch made on an anniversary may have a wreath, etc.

In the field, he cites several different possibilities, including officina marks, abbreviated slogans (letters like PR), control/sequence marks, etc. These seem to be fairly speculative, and don't appear to be well understood in many cases.

I don't know of any other sources that discuss this in as much depth though.

[Emanuele Giulianelli]

I see what you mean. Yes. the Failmezger book does have a chapter on that.

The short answer is that there is no short answer.

Paraphrasing from Failmezger: Outside of the letters of the mintmark itself (including any honorifics - SM - or officina marks) many of the marks in the exergue were likely control marks to indicate the minting sequence. I assume this refers to when a particular batch of coins was made - the first batch might have one mark, a batch made on an anniversary may have a wreath, etc.

In the field, he cites several different possibilities, including officina marks, abbreviated slogans (letters like PR), control/sequence marks, etc. These seem to be fairly speculative, and don't appear to be well understood in many cases.

I don't know of any other sources that discuss this in as much depth though.

ok, thank you!
i will take a look at the Failmezger