AncientCoinnoisseur Posted July 9 · Member Author Share Posted July 9 49 minutes ago, Valentinian said: Welcome to Numis Forums! Long ago the "tongs" of the Crepusius type were thought to be for picking up hot flans. Of course, if you think about it, or have ever used tongs or even pliers, you realize they couldn't do that job. (Plus, research no longer suggests flans were struck hot.) Those tongs might just be tool of Vulcan, but I don't think so. I think the "tongs" were used to hold the pile die. Lots of ancient dies are extant (over 100 are listed in Conii e scene di coniazone by Travaini and Bolis, in Italian) but almost all have been judged to be counterfeiter's dies. However that many be, they probably used technology similar to official mints. The counterfeiters dies are often short, a couple of inches, and rarely as long as six inches. Even the long ones have hardly enough room to hold by hand and if you imagine actually doing it, wouldn't you like to have some distance between your left hand hand holding the die and the heavy hammer repeatedly coming down hard? The tongs could be designed to hold the pile die. That would allow the left hand to hold the die (even it was short) and protect the hand somewhat from the shock of the strike. Or, maybe there were two people involved, as in the photo of a modern reenactment (with a short pile die). There is a lot we don't know about ancient minting. That is actually a really interesting theory! It makes more sense, especially if the coins were not struck hot (although, what about flow lines?) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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