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Solidus Officina

Does anyone know what an 'officina' is as related to a Justinian Solidus?

For example this auction indicates it's a 1st officina

Does it mean the office that created it? Or is it some sort of indication of the date?

Comments

  • WillieBoyd2WillieBoyd2 Posts: 5,034 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Officinas (offices) were mint work sections, numbered 1, 2, 3 or A, B, C, or the equivalent in other alphabets.

    :)

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  • Autos4AlexAutos4Alex Posts: 442 ✭✭✭

    Thanks for the info and pointer!

  • SapyxSapyx Posts: 1,977 ✭✭✭✭✭

    When a modern coin collector thinks of the word "mint", we tend to think of what a mint is like in our own day: a large, sprawling industrial complex the size of several city blocks, big enough to house the coinage production facilities for an entire medium-sized country.

    In ancient times, mints weren't like that. In an era where every industry was a cottage industry, the mints were in cottages too; each cottage was an "officina" of the mint. So, in the Late Roman period, for a large city or for a city producing coinage for a large number of nearby cities in addition to itself, a large number of these officinae were required to produce all of the coinage necessary. At one stage, Antioch had fifteen of them, for example.

    Although these mint-buildings were physically separate, there was still usually a great deal of centralized oversight and control in terms of coinage design. While stylistic variation between mint-cities is fairly common, stylistic variation between officinae of the same city is usually much more subtle. The officina-marks were one way that quality control of the various officinae were maintained.

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  • Jackthecat1Jackthecat1 Posts: 1,122 ✭✭✭

    A fascinating history lesson.

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