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Diocletian not in RIC

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Lech Stępniewski:
Very interesting discussion but in my opinion the simplest solution is the best solution: RIC VI TREVERI 181a from officina  :Greek_Gamma: with an engraver's error.

Sorry, my mistake: should be "from the third officina".

Laurentius:
Ok, it seems to be a engraver's error.

I am not that well read about the mint in Trier at the time of the Tetrarchy.
Do I see it correctly, that there were 3 officina at that time? Marked by the
letters A, B, C, to be seen on the left side of Genius, with this type.
Are there any new insights into the meaning of the issue mark on the right.
Often one speaks of the labeling of the individual emissions, or it could also
be internal sign of an Officina?

best regards
Ralph

Heliodromus:
The first issues from Trier are:

1) TR
2) TR A-C
3) TR A-C + gamma
4) TR A-B + star

The A-C do appear to be the officina, although "C" as an officina designator is strange (expect :Greek_Alpha: :Greek_Beta: :Greek_Gamma:).

The gamma of the 3rd issue appears to be part of the issue mark, not intended to have any meaning as such, although RIC suggests it was chosen for this 3rd issue since gamma=3.

Laurentius:
Thank you for your explanation Heliodromus. That brings me some light into the dark.
After Diocletian's coin reform, the mints apparently had a lot to do. With this amount
of expenses in a short period of time, it was hard to keep track of things.

best regards
Ralph

SC:
Such marks were important for internal accounting.  Mint officials were legally responsible for the materials given to them.  If they didn't ensure that sufficient coins were made from a batch of material provided, they could lose their income, or even their head.  This of course sometimes led to fraud - for example skimping on the silver content - as is best known from Aurelian's "war" against the moneyers of Rome who appear to have been getting away with making sub-standard coins.

In addition, as fineness levels could change - either officially or due to supply problems or fraud - I believe that such marks could allow officials to know which issues to keep in circulation and which to remove to recover the now-excess silver for the benefit of the State. 

Interestingly, throughout the fourth century there almost never appears to be a standard Empire-wide method of indicating issues.  Sometime a group of mints, often all under a regional mint official or rationales summarum would follow the same pattern.  However, in most cases each mint went its way. So it appears that at Trier the mint master changed the field letters for the 2nd issue, added gamma (Greek 3) for the third issue, but chose star for the fourth issue.  No rules - do what you want....

SC

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