[Avodah] Panim Chadashos in an era of mass production

[Micha Berger]

On Tue, Feb 19, 2019 at 09:25:02PM -0500, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote:
: At first I wanted to agree. To the modern eye, modern coins are all
: clones of each other, but the ancient ones are unique pieces of
: artwork, each unto themselves...

: But I think Perek Eilu Metzios would disagree. See Rashi, right there
: at the beginning of the perek (Bava Metzia, chap 2): "Maos mefuzaros -
: Scattered coins, since they don't have a recognizable siman, people
: give up on them, and they are hefker."

: Mass-produced is mass-produced. Things haven't changed as much as we
: might think.

However, I already quoted AhS (CM 360:7) listing the shitah the same
rishon (BQ 96b, Rashi "panim chadashos bo'u lekan") as the restored coin
or brick "d'i efshar letzamtzeim o gedolah or qetanah". Or, as the AhS
paraphrased, "sheyehi shaveh be'orekh o berochav kebarishonah". And then
the AhS continues "ve'af im ya'asenu bidfus..."

I think it's that in BM they're talking about simanim. Not whether the
coin is visibly different as is the chiluq in our case, but whether
people would pay enough attention to the differences for them to serve
as a siman.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             The trick is learning to be passionate in one's
micha at aishdas.org        ideals, but compassionate to one's peers.
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