I was cleaning out a pile of old papers and ran across one I printed out from an online source I was not certain would still be around when I wanted it back when someone mentioned it (here?) before. I suggest you consider doing the same even though the site is still maintained. http://www.nowandfutures.com/large/Roman Currency of the Principate.html The paper was originally a handout for a college course (I believe by Kenneth Harl?). It has a lot of very detailed information on alloy averages showing who debased what and when they did it. While interesting and undoubtedly correct in an average sense, users need to be aware that a coin listed as being made in, for example, 49% silver will vary a lot within the issue so you can't say your coin is 'wrong' if it tests quite a bit off this number. If we read it to the level that coins of Septimius Severus from his first year are better silver than those of Commodus or of Septimius' later period, there is a lot of good information. One bit I recall learning long ago that I found interesting was the amount of silver in the 1st century denarii and matching billon Alexandrian tetradrachms was quite similar. The larger coin just had additional base material. Enjoy.
Thanks. How many times have we been asked questions that answered in this paper. Next time, I plan to quote the paper.
Which raises a question, are ancient coins more pure in silver than the average modern silver coins ?
This is a question answered well in this paper. We come down hard on Nero for starting the debasement of the denarii but the chart shows he is still above 90% silver of the US. The interesting ones are where a new ruler comes in and issues better silver than his predecessor. The chart shows more than one of these. Today, those of us who spent real silver coins are becoming a minority. There are very few people left who ever spent face value gold. My 103 year old mother-in-law could have since she was in college when gold was called in but just how many gold coins do you think a poor college girl had back then. My mother became a Registered Nurse in 1932 and was paid $1 a day for her first job. A dollar was a lot of money then. A gold coin was a lot more.
