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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;EWC3, post: 3121433, member: 93416&quot;]I have questions about the suggested Stannard procedure for weight adjustment - mainly because it does not seem to me to lead to a sensible way to make coins.</p><p><br /></p><p>The main point to al marco is to save time at the mint by knocking out a fixed number of coins from a fixed weight of silver, without bothering too much about the variation coin to coin. (See Grierson on this)</p><p><br /></p><p>Here is my alternative suggestion. At the point of delivery to the mint silver bullion is weighed, and the owner is given a chit stating the number of coins he is to receive. Now 500g was the standard mina of Persia and also widely adopted as a commercial pound around the ancient Mediterranean. Quite possibly bullion was received or made into 500g bars at the Rome mint, which were then cut up in a binary fashion. (This binary cutting method seems to be something many mints have done, over millennia). So you make 128 denarii by this simple al Marco serial halving method - at c. 3.9g each - which is what we see.</p><p><br /></p><p>Now let us suppose from time to time in the mint some butter-fingered guy dropped a coin, (or some light-fingered guy swiped one, or someone just fluffed his sums). Bound to happen, I would say. At the end of that process then, you have a guy coming round shortly to the mint with a chit for (say) 128 coins, and you only have 127 to give him. Panic stations. You hastily chisel a bit of silver from a rather random bunch of the 127, until you have about 3.9g. You make up the numbers with a denarius from your own pocket, but set the bag of bits to one side to recompense yourself down the line.</p><p><br /></p><p>As I read it, Stannard only finds this chiselling on about 2.5% of the coins, across the board. That does not seem to me to fit with any general scheme to adjust the weight of the coins.</p><p><br /></p><p>It does however fit with an occasional exercise in adjusting the number of coins.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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