Methodological Issues Greek Overstrikes

General issues

Greek overstrikes are not a rare phenomenon. Thousands of them could be gather although most coinages are totally deprived of any. Gold overstrikes are nearly non-existant. For silver and bronze and as a rule, overstrikes tend to form clusters at various levels. A full landscape could be affected including various mints of the same area and time. At a lower level, overstrikes could concern a full issue or only some parts of the sequence. For the general lanscape and the mechanims of the various observed patterns, see1. When a specific issue has been massively overstruck (mostly then bronze issues), it has been decided to take no more than 30 specimens as an enough representative sample.

The level of confidence

In case an identification of the overstruck type is made, there are 4 levels of confidence: "uncertain", "weak", "strong", "sure". The level "uncertain" applies when one is not sure that this is really an overstrike even if, as it regularly happens, it is recognized as such by the publication (often a sale catalogue). While there are many real cases of unrecognized overstrikes, the opposite is even more common: a high number of pretended overstrikes which, after examination, are not (the most commmon case being a double strike). The level "sure" means that the identification of the general type is sure. But not, if made, the precise variety. In any case, it is important to check the box "Remarks" for specific comments. Comments into brackets are those quoted from the publication (often a sale catalogue). Other comments are those made by authorized members of the editing team.