In general, my view has always been that barbarous imitations of coins of the Gallic empire were made in unofficial mints in Gaul and at the Rhine, but certainly inside the empire. However, I just stumbled across some interesting information in a book about Germanic people. The authors present a find of 6 imitations of coins of Victorinus or Tetricus, plus three blanks and a copper ingot (see picture below). The description says that the items were found in the Germanic settlement "Heinrichswiese" at Echzell, Wetteraukreis, which is somewhere north of the city of Frankfurt in central Germany, and thus far beyond the Limes. The authors argue that the presence of blanks shows that such "inflation money" was produced in the Germanic settlement.
Did the 3rd century Germans even use money, though? It was my view that they had roughly the same views on minted coin as the Spartans did. It's also interesting and worth noting that barbarous radiates sometimes show up in hoards as late as the dark ages. This one showed up in an apparent hoard of Vandal coins that I bought from CNG a couple years ago - all the coins had the same green patina and mostly ranged from Marcian through Carthage-mint Justinian (and enough Vandal kings to attribute the lot as probably of Vandalic origin) This and an Aspendos AE10 were the significant outliers.
From my very first lot of ancient coins . 1.38 g 13.9 mm I do not think this is an official issue. Official "sister" is RIC V Tetricus I 121, but it simply looks strange.
I don't know if the Germanic people used coins like this but those who lived near the Rhine traded with Roman cities along that River on the Roman side and would have had a use for, even need of some kind of coinage when bartering would not work.
I believe it is always dangerous to assume that any independent people would have done anything the way their neighboring independent people did. I suppose it is possible that some German leaders had a 'Spartan' view of cash but that does not mean that all or even many held the same view. Barbarous coins are fascinating to 'study' but, as a whole, what we know is not 1% of what we might need to match what we have learned about the official mints (and we are far short of understanding these completely. Will we ever reach even a slightly better understanding? I am not an optimist. What I can tell you with some confidence is there are some very interesting coins on this page about which I wish we knew anything, let alone everything. Mine: I see a rudder on the reverse so I can guess Fortuna. I see a head left on the obverse --- I hope.
Echzell, where the op find was made, was a Roman fortress on the Rhaetian limes road. It was only in 260 or so that the imperial boundary fell back to the Rhine. I don't find it particularly surprising that elements of a Roman-style economy may have persisted into the 27Os or later at Echzell and elsewhere in the Wetterau, between the old limes and the Rhine.
Another possibility was brought in the last years: It was not always the coins themselves that were moving about but the people that were minting them. It required a minimum of effort to set up an irregular coining outfit and a minimum of space to transport a few dies around the landscape. Is it possible that the makers of the so-called barbarous imitations were itinerant artisans, travelling around and offering to recoin scrap metal for a percentage. So even if evidences in the form of chopped ingots, blanks, metalworking debris are sometimes discovered in a certain area, it doesn't automatically mean that there was "permanent " mint in this place. Here's my most stylish imitation of this period; talented engraver but poorly educated, orthographic difficulties and deity problem (it's Providentia not Victoria).
That is interesting. I find it surprising that there should still have been a Roman-style economy some 10 to 20 years after the Romans had left the region. Maybe the timing of their departure is wrong and they only left in the 270s. The coins and blanks were found in a Germanic settlement nearby. Maybe Germanic craftsmen were tasked with producing Roman inflation money, as the Roman mints could not produce sufficient amounts to keep up with rising prices.
I always imagine society as being a kind of spectrum in the ancient world. With people getting less and less roman the further you went into germania.
I have a few Gallic imitations, and I love them all. Carausius. Possible VIRTVS reverse. Tetricus I. I say I instead of II because I think I see the hint of a beard. Probably a Spes reverse, but it's anybody's guess. Tetricus II with the sharp bearded jaw of Tetricus I, but with NO beard, so I guess we can go with Jr. For a 12mm module, the PAX reverse is actually rather pleasing. For good measure, the smallest Claudius II imitation I have, a whopping 13mm. Despite the crammed flan with a portrait that only a mother could love, I suspect the die itself had accurate lettering if the DI- on the obv is any indication. It's hard to ruin a square altar, so I can't really comment on that quality.
I read somewhere, I forget now, that at Hadrian's Wall there were (para)military groups that still maintained uniforms, customs, and courtesies of the Romans up to a few centuries after the Romans official left town. I really wish I could find the article. I as I remember, there was archaeological evidence of antique armor and weapons (dated by coinage found nearby) that was up to 200 years old compared to the coins. There was enough of the antique stuff that the implication was that after the Romans left, some soldiers stayed behind as mercenaries. They then developed a sort of legendary status amongst the locals, who would then join the "Roman" paramilitary/militia group in their everlasting protection of the border. In order to harken back to the good old days, these mercenaries would often use, or at least display/use for ceremonial purposes original armor and weapons from the actual Romans who used them last. The modern equivalent is the Swiss Guard at the Vatican who dress in 16th-17th century attire and wield polearms. Another similar case is the US Army's 1st Cavalry Divison, which to this day often continues to wear uniforms about 2 centuries out of date, for the sake of tradition. These guys are regular active duty soldiers approved to wear an antiquated uniform.
No need to over-think this, in my opinion. The 'barbarous radiates' were the product of numerous illicit mints and were widely distributed throughout the old Gallic Empire. That a few should be found a 100 miles or so beyond the Rhine in a place that had been an important Roman outpost for some 150 years just prior, ought to come as no surprise. If it turns out that they were actually manufactured in Echzell, what better location for an illicit mint than a Romanized area just beyond the reach of Roman authorities? The term "inflation money" is odd and perhaps a bit misleading. I take it to be a reference to what we would call 'minimi', the smaller class of radiate imitations.
I think "inflation money" is the best term to describe these coins, because they were minted during a period of rapidly rising inflation or hyperinflation, when the value of the Antoninian took another significant step down. These coins were mass produced to keep up with rising prices. They are in a sense akin to inflation money of the 20th century, when sometimes banknotes were stamped or stickers were applied to increase their nominal value to keep up with the rising price level. Also, I don't think that these were "illicit" mints that produced the coins. There is no way in which these coins could fool anybody into thinking that they were official mint products. I think they were produced by auxiliary mints to overcome the coin shortages that is typical for periods of rapidly rising inflation.
There is quite a body of literature on the topic and a scholarly consensus along the lines I've suggested. There is always room for opposing views, however, where the evidence warrants.
Do I understand you correctly in that the scholarly consensus is that these coins are contemporary forgeries that were produced by "illicit" mints?
Just to give a point of comparison to the small hoard from Echzell that Tejas posted, the Niedersächsisches Landesmuseum in Hannover exhibits this small hoard excavated in Rassau/Suhlendorf near Uelzen. That's in northern Germany, some 60 miles south of Hamburg and far away from any former Roman settlement. The hoard contains a wild mixture of worn and corroded regular Roman asses and "barbarous radiates." The curators of the museum speculate that the hoard was probably amassed for its material value in metal. The Germanic tribes didn't do mining and smelting to a relevant extent, and thus suffered from a permanent shortage of all types of metal. The theory that Roman AE coins circulated and maybe even were produced in Germania for what they physically are, i.e. small and therefore easily tradeable pieces of metal that could be melted down, therefore seems to make a lot of sense.
This is my home region! I think this makes a lot of sense. I guess the Echzell hoard was misinterpreted. These coins were probably not made by Germanic people of the settlement where they were found. Instead, they accumulated the coins as raw material to make buckles and fibulae etc. Barbarous radiates were produced in vast quantities in Gaul and perhaps Britain during the currency crisis of the 270s. These coins had next to no material value for Romans, but were valuable for Germans and other "barbarians", who lacked access to metals like bronze and copper.
