From: Michael Everson (everson@evertype.com)
Date: Wed Jun 09 2004 - 11:08:59 CDT
At 08:49 -0700 2004-06-09, Doug Ewell wrote:
>Then I suppose one could use combining sequences. But I remember from
>the discussion of the austral and guarani signs that precomposed
>characters were preferred over combining sequences for currency signs.
>I don't see why that wouldn't be the case for mint marks as well. They
>are the same type of symbol.
None of the currency signs have a floating diacritic. We tend to
avoid the diacritics that go through letters. M with ring above would
not fall into that category.
>"Not open-ended" in the sense that, as James said, new mint marks are
>not being created as we speak. The modern trend is to use ordinary
>letters, or to do away with mint marks altogether.
OK
>As to whether the collection is open-ended going back in time, it is
>possible -- despite centuries of study -- that a previously unknown mint
>mark could be discovered. This is about as likely as a new Greek
>letter, say SHO, being discovered and encoded. It is certainly not
>"open-ended" in the sense of new Han characters being created on the
>spur of the moment, say for race horses.
OK
>Like James, I'm not a collector of ancients (I have exactly one coin
>minted before 1300) so I don't have the relevant books. I know they are
>out there. For British coins going back to the 800's or so, Seaby would
>probably be the best reference. I have another book on British issues
>(somewhere) that may help.
Without bibliography nothing can be done. My library is impressive,
but has limitations. ;-)
How many of them are there?
-- Michael Everson * * Everson Typography * * http://www.evertype.com
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