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Message:: [QUOTE="hotwheelsearl, post: 7469992, member: 75143"]I would imagine they were localized products. I don't recall any Constantinople coins, for example, having any of those odd denominations, so I would think that they only circulated in those cities where an odd denomination was useful. They were probably legal tender in the main regions, but you'd probably get a weird look paying for a 20-nummus item with a 16 and a 4 coin, but probably would have been accepted with a death stare as the merchant would have trouble converting it to something more useful. My guess is that a region where tetrassarion-style coins (4-units each) were common, then a 16-unit would have been pretty useful. Same with the 12, a place with a history of usage of 3-unit coins (such as a trihemiobol) would benefit from a 12 unit. While in the main cities the decanummium (10) would have been quadrupled into a full nummus (40). Coins in groups of four seem to be pretty ubiquitous; even today, 4 25-cent pieces is a very common way to pay for a dollar item, for example. That's just my guess though. Edit - the more I think about it, the more this 4-unit idea makes sense. While the proper Roman numerals for "40" would be "XL," they sometimes put "XXXX" instead. This probably helped people remember that four 10-nummus coins equaled one 40-unit coin; four X's make more visual sense than XL.(Although, did they make any decanummia with an X instead of an I?)[/QUOTE]