17 November 2010

"Clipped" Roman coins

To be familiar with "coin-clipping," it helps to be as old as me and able to remember a time when coins were made of precious metals like gold and silver.  In that setting it was possible to shave a little metal from the rim of the coin to refashion into another coin (or to sell as bullion).  It was the practice of coin-clipping that led coin manufacturers to introduce "milled" edges, so that clipping could be detected without weighing the coins.

I was reading today about the "Hoxne hoard," which included almost 15 THOUSAND Roman gold, silver, and bronze coins.  Apparently clipping was rampant in that era; almost every silver siliqua in the hoard has been clipped.  I found it interesting that a second reason was given for coin clipping: "a deliberate attempt to maintain a stable ratio between gold and silver coins."

3 comments:

  1. By "milled" do you mean "reeded?"

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  2. Wikipedia offers the terms as equivalent. I'm not sure if that's precisely correct.


    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coin_clipping

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  3. Weighing of coins was a practice that could defeat clipping but folks wouldn't bother to weigh coins for minor purchases it wasn't worth the effort.

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