Aurelian Question

I cant seem to find a denarius of Aurelian.

I know his reign was during the Crisis of the Third Century but does this mean his only coins were bronze?

Were true silver Denarius gone late by the 2rd or 3rd century?

 

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Yes. The denarii of Aurelian have so little silver content that they look bronze. They are much less common than the double denarii which have radiate crowns. My only denarius has a green patina so you can not tell if it ever had a silver wash on the surface. Perhaps someone here can post one with silvering remaining???

A double denarius with much retained silver wash but some wear through showing the base metal below:

 

Which emperor was on the obverse of the last true silver denarius?

 

Doug's coins are about the best of both worlds on Aurelian's coins

 

Postumus was striking silvery-looking denarii as late as 267 or 268 CE (though these "silver" denarii were no more than about 35% silver (the bare minimum that you can have a coin look silvery without having to plate it.) I doubt the Roman mint was striking anything that didn't require a silver wash by that point.

Here's one, which unfortunately does not belong to me:



This one cleaned up quite nice, because many of these have had some of the impurities leach out unto the surface revealing that it is very low-grade silver at best (frankly I wouldn't call any coins past around 250 CE "silver" without a quotation mark. They are around 40% silver at best by that point.

 

I see . Which was the last emperor denarius that still had high grade silver?

 

The Wikipedia article has a fairly good write up about the Denarius.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denarius

 

You got your answer, Postumus. He minted 40-45% silver for a few years longer than his rival Gallienus, and then some 30% to 35% "silver" coins for the remainder of his reign, until about a year before his death where the silver content fell to roughly 13% to 5%.

I doubt you'll get a better answer than that. Ultimately if you want coins that are 50% or more silver, you'll have to look at the early reign of Caracalla. By the time of Gordian III we're down to 45%. After Philip I, we are down to 40%, and only a few years later Roman coins stop looking silvery with Gallienus. Postumus managed to strike silvery looking coins for a little bit longer than that.

 

Ah no wonder a couple of my Caracalla denarii seem pretty high in silver content

thanks!

 

Also keep in mind that silver coins were still struck by some later Emperors, although not regularly and in much lower numbers than before.


Siliqua of Valens


Argentus of Gallerius

 

It's ok to hand hold your coin. You're really don't need tweezers for that.

 

Gordian III issued the last denarii that actually circulated, although I suspect that most still hoarded their denarii and spent the antoninianii, which had double the spending power and just about the same silver. Most emperors from Philip I to Diocletian issued denarii, although with the exception of Aurelian, they are all very scarce to exceedingly rare. The absolute last emperor to strike "good silver" denarii of any sort in quantities that probably circulated was Carausius, although his coins are pretty scarce across the board. Like Postumus, it was mostly a publicity stunt rather than a serious attempt to repair the irreparable coinage.

After Diocletian's price reforms (which happened around the time of the fall of Allectus if I'm not mistaken) the denarius seems to have existed on paper only as an accounting unit, although some argue that the post-reform "laureate" or the civic "persecution issues" may have been physical denarii communes.

The name somehow survived long enough for others to adopt it; directly as multiple-denarii coins of the Vandals, and as the Denier of France, which survives as the penny today.

Here's my Gordian III denarius, a coin I'm always happy to show off. Notice a curious engraver's error - Sol is laureate too!

 

Metal tweezers! Why? Just hold the coin.

 

are you guys talking about antoninianii or denarii or both ??

Don't understand why you cant' find a denarius of Aurelian.

here is an AE-Denarius of Aurelian:
https://www.ma-shops.com/kuenkeramdom/item.php?id=10739&lang=en

and here a silvered antoninianus:
https://www.ma-shops.com/noel/item.php?id=17041&lang=en

The Antoninianus was a coin used during the Roman Empire thought to have been valued at 2 denarii. It was initially silver, but was slowly debased to bronze with minimal silver content. The coin was introduced by Caracalla in early 215, and was a silver coin similar to the denarius except that it was slightly larger and featured the emperor wearing a radiate crown, indicating that it was a double denomination. In 271 Aurelian II increased the average weight of the Antoninianus. This was carried out for a short time. The decline in the silver content to the point where coins contained virtually no silver at all was countered by the monetary reform of Aurelian in 274. The standard for silver in the Antoninianus was set at twenty parts copper to one part silver.

Just confused about what exactly you are saying in this thread ... :-(

 

Has anyone seen a denarius of Aurelian without the green patina? I do not know from first hand experience if the coins were silver washed or not. All I recall have been patinated or harshly cleaned.

Most amateur eyes will accept the denarii of Gordian III as decent silver. Later ones wee either rare enough to be unobtainable by most or too debased to be called silver.

 

Well, if this one originally had silvering, you'd never know it now:

 

The Spanish word for money, dinero, comes from denarius as well.

 

How about this one? I think I was very lucky to find it.

 

Don´t forget Carausius! He had some (rare, only 5 specimens in the Frome hoard with +850 Carausius coins) denarius with good silver content, those with "RSR" (Redeunt Saturnia Regna) en exergue, for example.

 

We call those coins denarii because of their size and silver content but I can not see them circulating as halves of even the best of the Carausius radiates. I do not claim to know what they were or what they were called in their day but I do consider them a footnote rather than a chapter in the story of the denarius.

For beginners: There are Slavey fakes of some of the rare denarii that show up artificially aged once in a while. There may have been real denarii with laureate portraits from Trajan Decius etc. but the one you found in a flea market is not genuine. I know statements like that offend those people who seriously believe they will stumble upon that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow but sooner or later most will leave the hobby or admit the truth. The demand for coins that do not exist always outstrips the supply and there are always people intent on selling dreams.
A few of the Slavey fakes:

L to R (top row) Augustus, Augustus, Caligula
(2nd) Nero Claudius Drusus, Pertinax, Pescennius Niger
(3rd) Septimius Severus, Gordian I, Gordian II
(bottom) Trajan Decius, Herennia Etruscilla, Alexander the Great