5 ms·

Interesting article, do wonder how they handled forgeries

kop316 5y ago
My understanding is that the coin's value is derived from it's weight and the precious metal it is. So when you get e.g. A Denarius, it's value was in the weight of silver it is. The coin was a way to folks to know that it was a specific weight, and therefore worth a certain amount of currency. I think a much more common thing was to shave off part of the precious metal and keep it (since the metal is worth money).
chipsa 5y ago
Forged coins tends to sound different (gold and silver ring differently when dropped than cheaper metals), and they are different hardness/strength than cheaper materials. If it's still gold/silver, but different design, it's just a foreign coin. They weigh it to figure out the worth. The tricky part is if the coin is clipped. Take a look at dime or quarter: notice the fancy edge? That was so if the edge got clipped, it's no longer fancy, and you can tell it was clipped and weighs less. This is actually an important property of silver and formerly silver coins: the different value coins change weight in direct proportion to value. So a quarter weighs 2.5x as much as a dime.
thom 5y ago
Something between 24-40% of silver coins found at archaeological sites appear to have been counterfeit, for most of the period of empire. There certainly were laws against counterfeiting, with punishments including being fed to the lions. This paper gives a good overview of the laws, and archaeological results: http://www.jaha.org.ro/index.php/JAHA/article/download/142/119 http://www.jaha.org.ro/index.php/JAHA/article/download/142/1... This has some interesting details about forgers' methodology: https://www.colat.org.uk/_assets/doc/faking-it-the-evidence-for-counterfeiting-coins-in-roman-london.pdf https://www.colat.org.uk/_assets/doc/faking-it-the-evidence-...
- thom 5y ago
  Of course it's worth noting that the Roman authorities themselves debased the coins at various times throughout empire so even the official stuff could be worthless: https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.511.7855&rep=rep1&type=pdf https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.51...
lazyier 5y ago
> Interesting article, do wonder how they handled forgeries (edit: got grams and ounces mixed up) Monetary denominations are a units of weight. So you weigh them. Mass and volume. It is hard to replicate silver and gold with cheaper metals. Back when the USA was on a bimetal standard you didn't technically have to have the money minted to have a "dollar of gold" or a "dollar of silver". It was same during the Roman era, although obviously they didn't use monetary units based on the Spanish Doubloon (ie: pieces of eight, or eight reals) So if you have 26.73 grams of silver you can say "I have a dollar in silver". It doesn't matter if it was stamped or not. Of course, that is worth about $21 nowadays since we no longer use money in the absolute technical sense, but currency based on the credit of the Federal government and inflation is a bitch. To this day if you weigh "silver coinage" in the USA it more or less weighs the same as it did before. Although obviously it is not exact anymore since our money is no longer silver based. That is if you take 10 dimes, 4 quarters, or two 50 cent pieces they all weigh about the same. Of course Nickels and Pennies don't work since they are not silver-based. This is why you see in old cartoons miserly people biting coins. They are theoretically checking to make sure it wasn't plated lead. People would shave coins to get little bits and pieces off the edges so it wouldn't affect the appearance. Which is why more modern coins are stamped with ridges and decorations near the edges. And, of course, as the Roman Empire fell they would debase their own currency in order to cover debts. So they would reduce the size of the coins or try to mix different metals in with it. Effectively the government was counterfeiting their own coins.
- imtringued 5y ago
  >Of course, that is worth about $21 nowadays since we no longer use money in the absolute technical sense, but currency based on the credit of the Federal government and inflation is a bitch. If humans were immortal and their money kept its value, we would be enslaved to the rich Romans to this day.
  - lazyier 5y ago
    What an interesting way to view history. It has nothing to do with how central state planning is utterly destructive to a society or anything like that. They must of gone all "free market" to fail so spectacularly.
candiddevmike 5y ago
Britain had a huge problem with this, also known as coin clipping: https://historyhouse.co.uk/articles/coin_clipping.html https://historyhouse.co.uk/articles/coin_clipping.html

My understanding is that the coin's value is derived from it's weight and the precious metal it is. So when you get e.g. A Denarius, it's value was in the weight of silver it is. The coin was a way to folks to know that it was a specific weight, and therefore worth a certain amount of currency. I think a much more common thing was to shave off part of the precious metal and keep it (since the metal is worth money).

chipsa 5y ago

Forged coins tends to sound different (gold and silver ring differently when dropped than cheaper metals), and they are different hardness/strength than cheaper materials. If it's still gold/silver, but different design, it's just a foreign coin. They weigh it to figure out the worth. The tricky part is if the coin is clipped. Take a look at dime or quarter: notice the fancy edge? That was so if the edge got clipped, it's no longer fancy, and you can tell it was clipped and weighs less. This is actually an important property of silver and formerly silver coins: the different value coins change weight in direct proportion to value. So a quarter weighs 2.5x as much as a dime.

thom 5y ago

Something between 24-40% of silver coins found at archaeological sites appear to have been counterfeit, for most of the period of empire. There certainly were laws against counterfeiting, with punishments including being fed to the lions. This paper gives a good overview of the laws, and archaeological results: http://www.jaha.org.ro/index.php/JAHA/article/download/142/119 http://www.jaha.org.ro/index.php/JAHA/article/download/142/1... This has some interesting details about forgers' methodology: https://www.colat.org.uk/_assets/doc/faking-it-the-evidence-for-counterfeiting-coins-in-roman-london.pdf https://www.colat.org.uk/_assets/doc/faking-it-the-evidence-...

thom 5y ago
Of course it's worth noting that the Roman authorities themselves debased the coins at various times throughout empire so even the official stuff could be worthless: https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.511.7855&rep=rep1&type=pdf https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.51...

lazyier 5y ago

> Interesting article, do wonder how they handled forgeries (edit: got grams and ounces mixed up) Monetary denominations are a units of weight. So you weigh them. Mass and volume. It is hard to replicate silver and gold with cheaper metals. Back when the USA was on a bimetal standard you didn't technically have to have the money minted to have a "dollar of gold" or a "dollar of silver". It was same during the Roman era, although obviously they didn't use monetary units based on the Spanish Doubloon (ie: pieces of eight, or eight reals) So if you have 26.73 grams of silver you can say "I have a dollar in silver". It doesn't matter if it was stamped or not. Of course, that is worth about $21 nowadays since we no longer use money in the absolute technical sense, but currency based on the credit of the Federal government and inflation is a bitch. To this day if you weigh "silver coinage" in the USA it more or less weighs the same as it did before. Although obviously it is not exact anymore since our money is no longer silver based. That is if you take 10 dimes, 4 quarters, or two 50 cent pieces they all weigh about the same. Of course Nickels and Pennies don't work since they are not silver-based. This is why you see in old cartoons miserly people biting coins. They are theoretically checking to make sure it wasn't plated lead. People would shave coins to get little bits and pieces off the edges so it wouldn't affect the appearance. Which is why more modern coins are stamped with ridges and decorations near the edges. And, of course, as the Roman Empire fell they would debase their own currency in order to cover debts. So they would reduce the size of the coins or try to mix different metals in with it. Effectively the government was counterfeiting their own coins.

imtringued 5y ago
>Of course, that is worth about $21 nowadays since we no longer use money in the absolute technical sense, but currency based on the credit of the Federal government and inflation is a bitch. If humans were immortal and their money kept its value, we would be enslaved to the rich Romans to this day.
- lazyier 5y ago
  What an interesting way to view history. It has nothing to do with how central state planning is utterly destructive to a society or anything like that. They must of gone all "free market" to fail so spectacularly.

candiddevmike 5y ago

Britain had a huge problem with this, also known as coin clipping: https://historyhouse.co.uk/articles/coin_clipping.html https://historyhouse.co.uk/articles/coin_clipping.html