Message:

<p>[QUOTE=&quot;kevin McGonigal, post: 3949233, member: 72790&quot;]As all of us know the Roman Empire coinage underwent a great, some may say catastrophic, debasement in the mid to later part of the Third Century. For a while the Roman mints did a pretty good job of disguising the debasement by some kind of enrichment process that left the surfaces of their silver coinage looking like the earlier silver. The silver of the double denarius of Gordian III, circa 242 AD, was under the 50% fineness grade but it still looked like a silver coin. By the beginning of the reign of Valerian in circa 253 AD it appeared that the Romans were still using an amalgam of silver and copper, that is a heated alloy of the two metals with copper so predominating, that coins of this period often have a copper tinge to them when first minted and then turn a kind of dark, dirty gray in color. But at some point, I am guessing here, but around 260 AD, the Roman mints seemed to have abandoned their coins of a base amalgam and gone to making the coins of essentially copper with a thin silver wash over the copper. I don&#039;t like to use the term &quot;plate&quot; because the plated fourees of earlier period were actually thick enough to remain silver in appearance for a considerable time after being minted, which was not the case of the washed or enriched coins. By the reign of Aurelian they seemed to have gotten to the point where they could apply some kind of silver wash that gave the coin the appearance, a very transitory appearance, of decent silver. From Probus on through the early reign of Diocletian the double denarius actually looks like decent silver, again, for a while.</p><p><br /></p><p>What I am wondering is if we can narrow down to a few years or so when the Romans changed from making their double denarii from a debased amalgam to an enriched wash treatment of copper coins. I have below a few coins of the period starting off with two coins of Valerian from ca. 255 AD. They seem to be an alloy of heavily debased silver, but not just a silver wash over copper. The coin to their right is one of Salonina, wife of Gallienus, probably from a few years later. It seems to be a silver washed coin rather than one of a debased alloy. The second row starts of with one of the coins of Gallienus which appears to me to be an alloy, not a wash while the next coin seems to be a coin of Gallienus which could be either, or both, heavily debased and thinly washed, a kind of transition coin, while the coin next to the right, one of Postumus[ATTACH=full]1040615[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=full]1040616[/ATTACH], seems to be in the same category as one that perhaps was heavily debased alloy with a silver wash over that. Lastly are the coins of Aurelian, Probus and Diocletian where the Romans seem to have gotten the enrichment or washed technique down pretty well. The last coin, of Diocletian, just before his reform and the appearance of the silvered follis is done so well it could have passed as a solid coin of fine silver.</p><p><br /></p><p>Anyway I wonder if members here have any thoughts on the process, when it occurred and the techniques used on the silvered coins of this period. Thanks for any input or interest that you can share.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

Your name or email address:

Do you already have an account?

• No, create an account now.
• Yes, my password is:
• Forgot your password?

Stay logged in