Din,
Let's focus on coins C-F for now. The discussion of a potentially reworked die (and my die comparison video above) was about the A-B vs C-F dies.
Here are three considerations that make me think D & E may be from the same transfer die.
1) The flow lines appear to be identical. Is that more likely to occur because:
a) These flow lines are present on a transfer die, transmitted to the coins via pressed production, or
b) There are no flow lines on the die, and despite the variation of hand striking they happened to just come out the same ?
2) The missing regions of pearl
border appear the same on both coins.
3)
a) All of C-E are derived from the same (obv, rev) die pair, and this rev die was also used to produce the known
fake F.
b) A, B are both from the same (but different from C-E) die pair
c) The
Hirsch coin, and the more recent sale, shown above, are again from the same pair of dies, different again from either of the above pairs.
How likely is it that we only ever see these three pairs used together, and not in combination (say,
Hirsch obv with E rev, or E obv with Hirsh rev)? Maybe such pairings exist, but these posted coins were not cherry picked.. they are the only
officina E ones I've been able to easily find.
Have we seen the entire population of coins struck from these C-E dies? Seems unlikely. We don't need to micro analyze just these coins and consider which is the mother of the other. Maybe they were all produced from the same dies in various stages of wear, with the
shield &
exergual like damage on C & D just reflecting the late stage condition of this
reverse die, and not that a transfer die was taken directly from D to produce C.
Finally, the
style of this C-E
obverse die is only similar to that of A-B (which by association seems suspect). The
bust styles from all officinas, as well as the
HIrsch officina E die, are much more homogenous and normal looking, as well as providing
style continuity into the following jewelled-diadem
bust type (see my post near top of this
thread). The C-E
obverse die (and, to an only slightly lesser extent, also the A-B
obverse die) is a stylistic outlier, and possibly modern.