Hi all, I have some slightly anal questions regarding the antoninianus, and hope those of you equally anal but far more knowledgeable have some answers. Everyone else is free to roll their eyes Anyway, I've been wondering if there's any correct or consistent way that the material used for this denomination should be described. What I've seen includes : Silver or AR antoninianus Billon antoninianus Silvered antoninianus Silvered AE antoninianus AE antoninianus My understanding is that even when Caracalla started issuing these, the silver fineness was already under 50%. Is there some level of silver fineness from which a coin would go from being called silver to billon? If so, what's that level? In Sear's books, he uses "billon antoninianus" to describe those coins issued from Valerian's range onwards, and "silver antoninianus" for those before. Is there then also a difference between "billon antoninianus" and "AE antoninianus"? Was there a time where there was in fact no silver content at all in the antoninianus? I believe Gallienus may have gotten to as low as 2% with the surface of the coin enriched with silver plating or 'wash'. Did Claudius II or Tetricus issue antoniniani that didn't even have a silver 'wash'? Would only these be correctly called "AE antoninianus", and others that had the silver 'wash' be properly called "silvered antoninianus"? What would you then call them if they no longer had the 'wash'? A quick search for Gallienus antoniniani on sale will turn up "silver antoninianus" as well as "billon antoninianus", "AE antoninianus", and "silvered antoninianus". Wouldn't be surprised if there were more.
I only use Billon for the tetradrachms. Otherwise I use AR Ant., Æ(S) for silvered Ant. and regular Æ Ant. for little to no silver if it has no silver wash.
Good questions. Technically, the term billon refers to an alloy in which the majority of the metal is base. By that definition, any ant with more than 50% copper would be billon.
Mat's categorisations make sense to me, except that sources like Sear choose to make a distinction between "silver" and "billon" ants, where it would seem to me that practically all ants are either billon or silvered AE.
Just my opinions: AR ant= a coin that looks like silver without a spongelike textured surface caused by too much alloy added to the mix. These (rarely) come as late as Gallienus and Postumus to my standards. Billon ant= a coin that is gray but has a texture that makes you doubt just how much silver is in it. These seem to start around the time of Trebonianus Gallus at some mints but that is mostly a matter of where you draw the line. Silvered ant (or AE(S) ant)= a coin whose silver was added after the flan was cast and still retains enough of that silver to make us aware it was there. AE ant= a coin that has lost enough of its silver that you don't consider it worth mentioning. There might be a little or it might be all gone. All this is not a cut and dried hard line matter but ways of describing a progression from silver to not in many steps with some issues being better than the ones the week before and some of the same date being different from others of a different mint. Very few Alexandria 4drs I have qualify as billon in my book after about Severus Alexander. We also see the term potin applied to them.
Potin http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potin To me, billon should look gray ... at least a little bit gray but can be toned dark. Really, to me, the word really means obviously not good silver. Most have at least a little texture Not all billon coins are Greek or Roman.
don't the potin coins have some % of tin?...they usually refer to those alexandrian tets as "potin teteradrachms"
http://www.forumancientcoins.com/numiswiki/view.asp?key=potin While tin is mentioned as one of the possible components, I consider potin more the equivalent of our modern 'pot metal' which is more or less whatever you have available for unimportant purposes. I recall learning the term as a kid when my cap pistol was referred to a 'just pot metal' rather like a dog might be called a mutt. I think you might be expecting too much to ask all the potin coin be exactly to a standard that you want to require all these centuries later. Copper seems to be the most common and predominant metal and I suspect that lead comes in high on the list as well. These terms are things applied by modern coin experts rather than records from 'the day'. I am a bit amazed at how the references often refer to tetradrachms without mentioning a metal while drachms are regularly called 'bronze drachms'. Repeating: to me, Billon is a metal that tries to look gray with varying degrees of success while Potin is less specific on both counts. I'm perfectly willing to (and regularly do) use the two terms interchangeably when dealing with the low end 'pot' metal coins but I do not call gray coins potin. They are either billon or silver depending on how generous I'm feeling at that particular moment. I can not recall seeing a gray tetradrachm of Alexandria after Severus Alexander but I have not made a study of this as a specialty. Gray metal lasted longer at Antioch (Trebonianus Gallus???). Who would like to undertake the analysis of a few thousand coins and report of their content? Before you ask, my coins are not available for drilling, melting scraping or other forms of testing for your study. It is a project for a museum with a huge holding of expendable junk coins and a museum that cares enough about coins to fund the study. Good luck.
I came across some figures in a paper published in the Ohio Journal of Science that resulted from chemical analysis of the metal content of 12 antoniniani - four each of Trajan Decius (249-251 AD), Trebonianus Gallus (251-253 AD), and Valerian (253-260 AD) : Trajan Decius - average 35.4% silver (individual range - 21.52% to 42.21%) Trebonianis Gallus - average 31.45% silver (individual range - 23.76% to 36.80%) Valerian - average 17.95% silver (individual range - 17.95% to 24.44%) What's interesting is the fairly wide range in the silver content even within the individual short reigns of Decius and Gallus. In any case, the primary metal in all the examples was copper, in which case I wonder if one could properly call any of them a silver antoninanus. CNG's records of Postumus antoniniani show that they describe some of these as "AR antoninianus" and others as just "antoninianus". I have a couple of Postumus antoniniani that look pretty nice and shiny, but at what can be not much more than 20% silver content at best, I don't know if I'd call any of them a silver antoninianus.
This little piggy has silver And this little piggy has none Personally, I prefer the fabric of the later tetradrachms; as the alloys approach a more traditional bronze there is less of a grainy or porous appearance. I wonder what the billion tetradrachms looked like immediately after striking. It would be interesting to see a large study of alloy composition through the range of Roman Alexandrian years but like Doug, I'm not offering any of mine for destructive testing.
Here are a couple of Alexandrian BI Tets that don't seem to have too much silver hue to 'em ... Gallienus Saloninus
Oh sorry, Z ... I guess you were actually asking about Antoninianus, eh? ... ... well, I do have a couple of Valerians to post ... => this is a Billon example ... Valerian I, Billon , Antoninianus 253-260 AD Diameter: 23 mm Weight: 3.76 grams Obverse: IMP C P LIC VALERIANVS AVG, Valerian bust right radiate cuirassed and draped Reverse: VOTA ORBIS, Two victories attaching shield inscribed SC to a palm-tree => and then I have this silver baby as a comparison Valerian II. Caesar, AR Antoninianus mint of Colonia Agrippinensis (Cologne) 256-258 AD Diameter: 22 mm Weight: 4.18 grams Obverse: VALERIANVS CAES, Radiate and draped bust right Reverse: IOVI CRESCENTI, Youthful Jupiter, head left, raising right hand, riding goat right Reference: RIC V(vol. 1), pg 116, #3 Other: VF. Good silver, well struck and centered. Light golden toning
I'm sure none of the below are anything approaching 50% silver but all are gray and smooth so I'd allow them to be called AR rather than BI. I might point out that 10k gold is still called gold even though it is less than half that metal so we might want to be a bit looser on terms.
I suppose if the line can't be drawn using the technical definition, the boundaries are going to be fuzzy at best. Certainly, I can't argue that those aren't three very nice-looking and very silver-looking coins
