Take a close look...how many coins per die does it really exist today?

[Anders]

I have looked around the net and searched for Q. Voconius Vitulus, J. Caesar denarius (excluding the "DESIGN"-type) and found 11 examples. 10 (ten) of them were found on the coinarchives.com site (identical pictures were also found on other sites) and 1 (one) was found on the heritageauctions.com site. Please see the attached picture.

When I looked at the coins with an open mind (a real close look), I did see 10*2 different dies?  All the 11 different coins looked (for me) like they were originally struck from 10*2 different dies?

If I am right or not, I must put this question: How many coins do exist of this type? Only 11 coins found and just 2 of then struck from the same die.

Many Regards from a coin-detective

[Rupert]

There are sometimes special circumstances which can make coins from certain dies quite common. Here are two examples from Greek Sicily.

The famous Naxos tetradrachm, one of the great masterworks of Greek coin art, struck about 460 BC from only one set of dies. About 75 specimens known, but they still sell for high five-figured prices due to their beauty and artistic significance.

A tetradrachm from Leontinoi, Apollon head / lion's head, three barley grains and one laurel leaf around. The last set of dies before the destruction of the town in 422 BC, probably most of the issue was hidden somewhere and found in the last decades. I don't know how many specimens are known but there are a real lot of these, almost one in each auction!

Rupert

[Anders]

Your coin example demonstrates the opposite. One? known die and a lot of specimen existing until now.
My example show a "coin-type", which has been in just a few auctions during the last 6 years, but all of them(with one exception) originate from different dies. 10 different dies but only 11 coins!
Isn’t it very odd? Where are the other specimens hiding-place?

/  Anders

[Joe Sermarini]

My guess is a lot of them are hidding inside tea sets, forks, knives, spoons, earrings, watches... 

Oh, and old pounds, franks, and silver dollars...

[Numerianus]

Of course, rare die matches might indicate that there were many dies engraved. I would say, hundreds and this estimates seems to be consistent with number of dies known for other
issues.

For the other Vitulus type, see  the Forum discussion on barbs and fourees
https://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=32515.new#new
Crawford registered less than 30 dies for the obverse and less than 33 for the
reverse, with the cow.   There is an opinion, expressed by M. Prieur and L. Schmitt, that these numbers  shows that the coins are much more rare than one might suppose from the literature. 

[Anders]

But how is the die status regarding other "rare-marked" coins?
Statistically it looks odd with only 11 coins on the market and more than 90% with its own die.
How many specimens are known of my referred part?
Do you have some interesting data for such similar coins?

Now with 3 question-marks  /  Anders

[Numerianus]

I have no answers to your questions. On the other hand, I do not see why
your data are odd statistically. If initially several hundreds of dies were cutted
but the majority of coins were melted down lately and so only a dozen of specimens are registerd on the  market last years, it is quite probable that  all of them will be from different dies. 

[jmuona]

A person like Warren Esty should really answer this, but I can make a few observations just as well, many of them on the basis of the research he, Carter and others have done.

First, the distributions of coins/dies are usually quite unbalanced, probably because many dies broke early on and contributed little to the coinage. Finding 10 dies for eleven coins suggests there were quite a few dies, but by no means unusually many. In case you observed the opposite situation, i.e. 11 coins and two dies, it would suggest there were few dies, IF the coins found can be regarded a representative sample of the original ones.

I have studied Otho's coins, which many dealers regard rare. The first 1000 coins had 521 different obverse dies, 316 of these being unique. The material suggests there were originally 900-1100 dies.

s.
Jyrki Muona

[Anders]

I am not familiar with the coins of Otho, but were these 1000 observed coins "meant to be alike" as my 11 specimens were?

/  Anders

[Rupert]

The products of different dies may, of course, have had quite different fates.

Let's say a mint struck denarii with a set of dies for one week (just an example). This week's output is dispersed to the public - we may have four or five specimens accidentally surviving now. Next week's production goes to Legion Nr. X in, let's say, Gaul - some specimens known, all found in France. The other week's production goes to an Eastern king as a diplomatic gift. He has them melted down to make a votive statue for a god - no specimens from these dies surviving. Another week, the coins are distributed to a legion, but the cash-box is buried before a battle and discovered only 2,000 years later - a great many specimens from a single pair of dies shows up within a few years on the market. And so on. There are certainly dies whose coins still have to be discovered, and some lost forever, but also some with a high surviving percentage. Another interesting studying field that modern coins cannot give you!

Rupert

[Anders]

My interest was also about how much influence, different circumstances have on the price of a coin today. As an example I was thinking of my previous Q. Voconius Vitulus example.

Is it the total number of specimens or coins per die? (or coins per year at the market?)
How much influence have the "coin-gurus" like Cohen? and Sear today?
Or is it just the supply / demand? (and if: who controls the demand?)

The price-interval from "the worse" to "the best” of these Voconius coins is only about 1000$ to 7000$.
That implies (to me) that it is other considerations that control the price?
(A portrait of Julius Caesar, good or bad, or maybe something else?)

/  Anders

[jmuona]

Anders,
there were 15 different types, 3 different obverses and 11 different reverse types. The largest group "meant to be alike" is the IMP M OTHO obverse combined with a SECVRITAS reverse. The material included 322 such coins minted with 210 reverse dies and about 180 obverse dies.
Different types were minted with the same obverse or reverse die just as different dies were used for minting  the same type.
s.
Jyrki

I am not familiar with the coins of Otho, but were these 1000 observed coins "meant to be alike" as my 11 specimens were?

[PeterD]

Or is it just the supply / demand?

Yes it is

(and if: who controls the demand?)

You, me and every other collector. Rarity will affect the supply part of the equation but only if enough people want to buy.

As for the different die question, imagine you minted a thousand coins from 10 different pairs of dies, put them in a barrel and mixed them up. Now pull out 10 coins at random. The result would be pure chance. Say the quantities for each die were 1,1,1,2,2,3. That would mean 5 pairs of dies were not even represented. Even so, the laws of probability allow for the possibility that one of each die could have been selected.

In any case, the question relates only to the coins on Coinarchives. You can't know how many more exist in public or private collections, which may be from the same or different dies.

[Numerianus]

I have studied Otho's coins, which many dealers regard rare. The first 1000 coins had 521 different obverse dies, 316 of these being unique. The material suggests there were originally 900-1100 dies.

s.
Jyrki Muona

I am sorry to activate this old thread but there is a question.
How many denarii were minted by Otho during his 3 month? I know that there are some different methods to estimate...

[jmuona]

Hi,
the answer is really "an unknown number". There are methods to estimate the number of dies used, and provided the coins sampled represent a good ramdom sample of the ones that existed, the result is probably OK. Many attempts to estimate the number of coins minted exist, but they are all really guesses. Nobody knows. If one is prepared to accept an average number of coins per die, a number can be obtained once the die number hasbeen estimated, but I would not take such a number seriously.
s.
jyrki Muona

[Numerianus]

This is a rather fundamental question. Mathematically, 10^6 or 10^7 looks like a close figures. But there is a great difference if one thinks about 3 tons or 30 tons of silver.
There are some estimates how many strikes could serve a die. A figure I remember is about 10,000.
This yields (on the basis of your estimate for the total number of dies)   the total 10M coins.
Now let us suppose that  only a single  coin from  thousand survived. How many Othos's denarii does exists now? The coinsarchive gives
400 entries. Extrapolating, one may estimate that there are several thousand denarii in  collections. So, the total number of denarii issued during 3 months of Otho's reign should be several millions.
One can think also about a salary of soldiers. Newly elected emperor could give an advanced payment, probably, for a couple of months -
to ensure  support of the army.  Say, 50 denarii par capita. Of course, the denarii should be newly minted with his effigee.
Counting about 100K soldiers, the figure could be  5M coins, as a lower bound. Of course, coins should be sent to provinces to show that the emperor is a strong guy and the things are goind smoothly. So, minting sufficient number of coins was vital for a newly elected emperor.

On  the other hand, Dr. Andrew Burnett estimates the maximal total year  issue for Domitian only in 2.6M. OK, it was a stationary regime,  with coins of his previous years. Also coins of  his father and brother still in circulation.  But this  figure seems to be miserable with respect to the population of the empire believed to be 50M. 

[Robert_Brenchley]

It does look miserable, but only when compared to the totally monetised type of economy we're used to. The figure should probably be seen more as an indication of the limited monetisation of the Flavian economy.

[jmuona]

I would like to suggest some further things to consider.
First, in Rome most ordinary people used small change if anything and there was plenty of AE coins around at the time of Galba's murder. I would not be surprised if it could be shown that gold and silver were a bit like a travelling and/or hidden bank account one had, not really something used for everyday purchases. This is exemplified by the finds made in Pompei and close-by regions. Most of the coins found on people are small change and there is surprisingly little of these found.
Second, much of Rome had its "own" money. Egypt had a possibly "closed" system and Syria and other Asian regions used mostly their own types, both silver and AE.
Even though Otho had little real power outside Rome, the East was with him and both the Syrian and Alexandrian coinage was plentiful.
s.
Jyrki Muona

[Numerianus]

Just two quotes from
http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_1741502785_3/roman_empire.html

"Merchants throughout the empire and as far away as India used Roman coins, but the monetary system primarily served as a way for the emperors to pay their troops, because the soldiers expected CASH."

"Augustus also bound his troops to him with regular compensation rather than the prospect of booty or goods seized during war. Each legionary received an annual salary of 225 denarii, from which the military deducted the cost of food and clothing. The government supplemented these wages with an occasional bonus like the 75 denarii provided in Augustus's will. Promotions also brought enormous salary increases. In each legion 60 centurions, noncommissioned officers who came from the ranks, each received 3,750 denarii, while the head centurion earned 15,000 denarii..."