Officina

There ought to be only one officina for the issuing of currency; there ought to be only one officina for the control of that issue.

[…] there may have been variations in method of describing an officina used to distinguish different series issued therefrom.

One officina resumed work in April and another in June, and a third is expected to restart shortly. The £8.831. written off in last year’s accounts for dishonoured bills has been recovered.

Judging by the style, only one die cutter was employed in the manufacture of all the obverse dies in the two officinas, but different die cutters produced the reverse dies nos. 26 to 41 and the contemporary nos. 55 to 60.

There is evidence that the number of officinae rose to four and perhaps five before the end of the reign, but the great majority of the coins were issued by the first and second officinae.

The coins offer no evidence of the existence of more than one officina during this period.

I have suggested elsewhere (Num. Chron., 1927, 118) that there was a progressive southward retirement of the Gallic mint organization, and a gradual withdrawal of the coinage of bronze to Arles, first at the expense of Trèves and then of Lyon, which struck in two officinae from Valentinian I to Gratian, and was reduced to one officina as early as 388.

Sometimes a single reverse may be used in every officina of a mint throughout one series in combination with various obverses, some of which are common to all the officinae, while some are used only in one or more of them.