In the early 1970s Konrad Kraft published a work on Roman civic coins that identified a number of cities that shared obverse dies. Although familiar with his ideas I have not had the opportunity to read this work. I am lucky enough though to have a modern continuation of his ideas, George Watson’s Connections, Communities and Coinage: The System of Coin Production in Southern Asia Minor, AD 218-276 (ANS, 2019).
Watson provides a detailed account of obverse mint styles, principally four, that suggest the centralised production of dies. He stays short of postulation centralised production and also recognising that the production of flans can be separate from the production of the dies.
He also suggests that the obverses were cut for specific cities and only as an “afterlife” were they used by other cities.
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I am fortunate to have a coin struck from a very particular die from Side in Pamphylia that he cites in support of this (I won’t rehearse all the arguments here) . Its an 11 assaria piece of Salonina (countermarked on the obverse over the IA denomination mark with an E to revalue as a 5 assaria piece) that, although showing the stylistic traits of the central cutting style of Workshop A, shows a feature that can only associate it with Side. Above the bust of Salonina is a pomegranate, the badge of Side. This die, V135 in the catalogue, although coming from the central die source could only find a sensible use at Side.
Pomegranate detail from obverse
