The Production of Roman Coins in Antiquity - AIC Video

I found this video doing a Google search. Thought I would share it.

 

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Fantastic video! I showed it to one of my archaeology professors and he showed it in class today.

 

That's great!

 

On re-watching the video I get the impression that striking the coins is an amazing amount of work, considering the small batches of flans involved, the necessity of smelting the metal (somewhere, I guess at the mint), then re-heating the flans before striking. I wonder how they cranked out so many late third century antoniniani trying to combat inflation by presumably, drastically increasing the output. One can imagine that the working conditions would not be optimal and that many of the dirty, dangerous jobs would be filled by slaves. These guys needed a union.

I also am curious about how the coins were actually released into the economy. Mass distributions, largesse, pay of soldiers and bureaucrats, etc.

 

About your question, D.Van Meter wrote in his Handbook of Romans Imperial coins : « Within cities, a major outlet was the network of moneychangers, who performed many of the banking functions in Antiquity. Donatives, Imperial payrolls, and Imperial contracting also served to place new coins in circulation. In the provinces, the chief outlets were often army pay-masters and the treasury officials of the Imperial governors and legates, and later, barbarian kings. The delivery process from the Treasury was similar to that used for currency today. Coins were counted out and bagged in pre-defined quantities, and these bags were sealed with wooden or ivory tags. Apparently, bags of coins (folles nummorum) assumed something of the role of currency themselves late in the Imperial era, and were frequently used as a unit of account in certain large transactions. »

 

Note that this is still the norm today, or at least it was quite recently, in India and Pakistan.

A couple of decades back I discussed this matter at an Oxford meet with the late Prof Spencer Smith, and he subsequently took the trouble to investigate the matter in Pakistan. Went to a national bank and asked to get small change. The request was refused, he was directed to go buy some in the bazaar.

Of course, as members in front line businesses will know, businesses have to buy their small change from the banks even here in the UK, (its not given out at par except in small amounts as a favour to personal clients). I assume its the same in the US etc?

Rob T

 

Thanks for sharing, that's very interesting.

 

Interesting!

Here in the US, anyone can go into a bank and buy change at par, although the bank may require you to have an account.

"Coin roll hunters" sometimes buy bulk coins (boxes of rolls of coins) hoping to find old silver. They buy a box of quarters, for instance (50 rolls, 40 quarters per roll), take a quick look at the edges, pull out any silver coins (often none), and then go back to the bank to exchange the coins for bills or another box.

 

Well, not quite. It seems US banks are more generous than the UK in this area

https://www.business.rbs.co.uk › RBS-current-account-charges-RBS03935

https://www.bankofamerica.com/smallbusiness/resources/business-schedule-fees.go

However, apparently anyone seriously in cash business will pay about 0.6% in the UK and a bit less than 0.3% in the USA, (due to the $7,500 freebee).

(In defense of UK charges - we mostly still get free personal accounts. Meanwhile I closed my US, Dutch, French and German accounts all due to escalating fees.......

 

In the US, you get different deals on fees depending on the bank/institution you select and where in the country you live. A common draw is the offer of free checking. Our local Credit Union not only has free checking for members but has a fee-free Coin Star machine where you can dump in thousands of mixed coins and have them counted with no fees. The machine prints out a receipt which you can take to a teller and exchange for bills or deposit in your account. Fifty years ago, my mother opened accounts at banks that were giving away dishes, toasters etc. when you made a deposit of a certain amount. Some banks or Credit Unions have minimum sizes on accounts (they wave all fees if you have a certain amount in your account in any form (checking, CD's, savings) and some fees for lesser amounts. Some offer special deals for college students (to get them in the habit of banking there). Banking now is little different than it was when my mother got free dishes, only the variety of carrot they dangle in front of the horse's nose has changed. People with no money and no account have to pay a fee to get their paycheck cashed. People with more money than they need can get everything free if they shop around. I suspect there were similar fee structures in ancient times. If moneychanging were an honorable and upright profession back then, I doubt we would have the Bible story of Jesus overturning their tables.

 

Full marks for that. The equivalent situation in the UK seems to me dreadful. Such machines over here - in my experience - are found in supermarkets not banks - and do not carry health warnings on the cover. If you start the process you find shocking fees - about 10% as I recall - (which I think you might find in Indian bazaars in the not too distant past).

I only once saw anyone use such a machines in the UK!

As I recall the Pergamum inscription suggested a gross change rate of c. 1/17 = about 6% - under Hadrian? (Pretty much like FX today)

There is a lobby amongst modern bankers to get rid of coin of course, for a whole bunch of reasons. Worth remembering that Keynes made some rather derogatory comments about coin use, near 90 years ago. And the influential historian Moses Finley seemed to offer interpretations of the Greek/Roman economies that, to me at least, seemed to build more on Keynes’ opinions than the facts.

in haste

Rob T

 

A case is made by some for the elimination of cash altogether. Considering the purchasing power of the US half cent when it was eliminated to the US cent of today, we might do well without all coins under the quarter dollar but no one wants to be held responsible for admitting that a trillion dollars just isn't what it used to be. Today the main use for change seems to be paying sales taxes on individual purchases rather than total of all transactions and continuing the myth that has all prices ending in something other than .00 (is the 99 cent menu a better deal than the dollar menu?).

 

I'm looking forward to purchasing my coins in the future with cryptocurrency!!!

 

IMHO the best example of transaction fees of all time is what happened with the Alexandrian mint. The Romans made a deal with Egypt : you provide us all the wheat we need to feed our people and we give you the authorization to establish a « closed currency system ». The system was initiated by Ptolemy I and maintained by Rome until Diocletian. It implied the presence of an overvalued local currency and the interdiction of the circulation of other foreign currency. All foreign coins had to be exchanged at the borders. For example, the Ptolemaic tetradrachm of ca.14g was exchanged 1:1 with the international circulating Attic standard tetradrachma of ca.17.3g. This system provided a 25% gain on any foreign commercial transaction... that’s what I call business...

 

One hopes that the closed monetary system was less susceptible to the factors that caused inflation in the Empire's economy in the 3rd century A.D. However the declining weight and fabric of the billon tetradrachm between the years, for example, between 235 and 280 A.D. suggests that Egypt, too, was probably impacted by the devaluation and debasement of the antoninianus, so that the wealthy citizens of Egypt started feeling pinched and may not have been able to maintain an effective gain of 25% on foreign monetary transactions.

 

Yes. My own reaction to all this is that the old (British) saying:

“look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves”

describes an attitude of mind.

The old Mercian penny had (I would argue) a continuous history as a denomination from 793 to 1971. 1,178 years. The new (decimal) penny is under attack when less than 50 years old. So when I defend the (new) penny my real intention is to highlight concern about the things being done in the modern economy, and thus to defend old attitudes of mind.

Note further that the old penny was “in essence” binary. The facts were rather hidden – but the fact looks very much like there were 256 sterling pennies in a troy pound.

Thus there seems to me fun to be had, in another thread, with Valentinian’s line about a “$64” question

Nero’s denarius was (I would argue) “in essence” binary. The facts were again rather hidden – but the fact looks very much like there were 128 Nero denarii in an Attic Mina. And text from Diocletian seems to suggest a new denarius went 100 to 1 against the old.

Ha! Perhaps I should suggest that the aurelianus problem is $100 question? (joke)

How much did 1971 in Britain resemble c. 271 in Rome? At least a little I suspect.

Rob T

 

Long ago someone told me that the Alexandrian tetradrachm of most periods contained roughly the same silver as the Roman denarius of that time. The weight was higher proportionally with the reduction in purity. How accurate was that approximation? It is hard to measure relative purchasing power due to great variations from place to place. In Egypt, bread was nearly free since so much of the grain supply was grown there. What was imported into Egypt because none was produced locally? When Augustus set up the system of Egypt being the personal property of the Emperor, the selection was not random. What changed that ended the period of Egypt being the most important property on earth?

 

A gradual change in the selection of crops grown. Today Egypt produces vast quantities of sugar in the form of sugar cane which started in the Ottoman period - this was not a cash crop in ancient or in medieval times. Also cotton, which was introduced in Colonial times. It's to the point that wheat is mostly imported from the U.S. Bread is still essentially free since the cost (25 piastres) for 5 loaves of flatbread is infinitesimal since today the Egyptian pound is worth 1/16 of the US dollar. 25 piastres is one quarter pound, so you can see how cheap it is. In my travels I have noticed that there are two economies in the country - one for tourists who pay Western prices for accommodations and food, mostly purchased from tour operators in advance, and the local economy where one goes to purchase bread from the local baker's shop early in the morning after the morning prayer is sounded by the mu'ezzin. The Aswan dam, which keeps the Nile from flooding and has led to the "modern" country, was a disaster because the country now relies on fertilizers for agricultural production and not the annual deposit of the highly fertile silt.

One of the side effects of sugar production is the dismantling of monuments (Asar) from the Pharaonic, Ptolemaic, and Roman periods to build kilns for the reduction of the sugar cane throughout the country. Kind of a sad state of affairs for antiquarians.