Ancients are works of art, in fact i'd go so far as to say works of sculpture as the relief is that high.
I remember when i first met an Athenian Owl i was impressed by the thickness of the coin, the sheer weight too.
Mass production is always an increase in speed, turn around on profits and reduction in quality. Of course they have quality control, which is mis-leading in itself, perhaps standardisation control?

(Or perhaps they keep the quality low?)
In answer to jlueke, yes all the sold ones were sold to finance my move into the 10th-12th centuries.
Although it's a little known fact i am very fond of gold coinage. Most people think i prefer silver because that's all i ever seem to post, generally though gold gets the thumbs up from me a bit more. And i used to have quite a collection of gold stuff, i must have had about 40 or 50 gold coins at one time. Ranging from the 14th century to the 20th. I have seen lots of medieval French gold coinage that i'm currently fighting the temptation to buy.
I loved the half guineas the most, they were the right size, sixpence sized! They eventually got sold though so i could expand my date run of 1674-1787 sixpences. Which due to a lack of quality control on my part ended up with grades here there and everywhere. So eventually got sold.
However i've been buying French 1/10th ecu's of Louis XVI (also sixpence sized) because, well because i just can't stop myself.
I fully intend to return to sixpences one day, but next time i'm gonna do it right!