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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;EWC3, post: 3003343, member: 93416&quot;]Hello Doug (Smith),</p><p><br /></p><p>No takers so far on the suggestions I put up earlier – and in fact this does not surprise me – so I will try to unpick this matter further. You are clearly one of the most generous spirited guys I ever came across – so nothing personal at all in what follows!</p><p><br /></p><p>You write:</p><p><br /></p><p>DS &gt; On the other hand, he may go too far in postulating a web of weight based interdependencies which partly might be coincidence.</p><p><br /></p><p>Well that raises a whole barrel of philosophical problems. Leibniz for instance seemed to think everything that ever happened was a co-incidence. I was careful to say (and I put it in bold – but even then - few read it) that what I offered were ‘best guesses’. So I am happy to get, in any particular case, either a better guess, or notice of a fatal flaw. But there is no possible reply I can make to the extreme sceptic who says all I put might be just coincidence.</p><p><br /></p><p>To put it another way – David Hume worried about whether the sun would come up tomorrow. I do not. Life is too short.</p><p><br /></p><p>There is a deeper problem here though, since the line you take is without doubt becoming very common if not dominant everywhere. Study of historical metrology, old weights and measures, was a big deal back in renaissance France and Italy, took off in England in the early 18th century and was huge by the early 20th century – the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica has a very long section on it – but by around 1970 the topic has disappeared there, and most other places. Study of weights and measures as a general topic died during the 20th century, outside of a small number of enthusiasts. Since so far Cointalk seems to corroborate that conclusion – here are my (best guesses!) as to how this happened.</p><p><br /></p><p>1) There always has been a big range of opinion on what matters are probably due to direct influence, and what matters are just weird co-incidences. Lets call the range from ‘the optimists’ to ‘the pessimists’. On the scale you are well into the pessimist camp, where as I think I am close to the goldilocks position <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie1" alt=":)" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" /></p><p><br /></p><p>2) In 1911 Barclay Vincent Head published Historia Numorum. A magnificent piece of scholarship, and nothing much wrong with his estimation of the actual various Greek coin weight standards. However, he also erected a theoretical interpretation of how these standards were linked which appears to be plucked out of thin air, and that seems to me to be wrong. From the 1920’s on we find people dividing up into Head supporters, and those who rejected all studies of weight standards as rubbish. That goes on to this day I think. I am not in either camp. I just think Head was wrong.</p><p><br /></p><p>3) Around 1925 Maynard Keynes was in transition from an academic philosopher to an academic economist, and he became on his own account obsessed with weight standards. After a couple of years he abandoned that study, calling his own work his “Babylonian madness”. In 1930 he published his Treatise on Money which suggests to the reader that weight standards are arbitrary decisions of the state or the community. (see page 13)</p><p><br /></p><p><a href="https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.30220" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.30220" rel="nofollow">https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.30220</a></p><p><br /></p><p>Rather like Head – he plucked this out of then air, there is hardly any consideration of the facts to back it up. This view of weight standards as arbitrary state decisions has dominated the Keynesian side of economics ever since</p><p><br /></p><p>4) The spread of Keynesian ideas in general had big practical consequence for the general population, especially coin collectors. As I understand it, for a long period ownership of gold coins was strictly controlled by law in the US, and also for a shorter time in the UK. (Way back when I was a schoolboy, one of the local coin dealers I knew went to prison in the UK for selling gold sovereigns). This politicisation inevitably stoked a backlash, which seemed to be based upon a sort of anti-Keynesian belief in the idea that “in the good old days” a silver penny contained a pennyworth of silver etc. Actually, I agree with that idea, but I disagree with a lot of people about when those “good old days” actually were. I could say a lot more on this – but will stick here to just one example. Grierson at Cambridge UK held that Charlemagne had two weight standards, 16 Roman oz&nbsp; approx 436g for bullion, but 15 Roman oz approx 409g for coin . The difference covering seigniorage and brassage. Sargent at the Federal Reserve Bank USA more recently held that Charlemagne&#039;s coins contained their full weight in silver. My position is that Grierson backed up his argument and gave us the ‘best guess’ as to what happened. Sargent plucked his answer out of thin air. More generally, to understand the history of weight standards one has to understand the political imposition of seigniorage. Rejecting arguments from seigniorage will result in the rejection of most everything anyone will say about weight standards.</p><p><br /></p><p>Can you see now where 3 &amp; 4 gets us? Both Keynesian and their Monetarist opponents oppose the objective study of weight standards. If you get it right - you are shot by both sides.</p><p><br /></p><p>5) In the 1960’s archaeology was still struggling to get a foothold in academic life proper. It was in a kind of turf war with History for recognition, grants, student take up etc. The professional archaeologist Lang in 1964 published her work on the weights from the Athenian agora – it is here</p><p><br /></p><p><a href="http://www.ascsa.edu.gr/pdf/uploads/oa_ebooks/oa_agora/Agora_X.pdf" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://www.ascsa.edu.gr/pdf/uploads/oa_ebooks/oa_agora/Agora_X.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://www.ascsa.edu.gr/pdf/uploads/oa_ebooks/oa_agora/Agora_X.pdf</a></p><p><br /></p><p>In it she was very sarcastic about amateur metrological studies – and her comments have been prominently quoted (eg by Biggs (UK), and thence cited by Holland (Israel)). Personally I think this is a pot and kettle matter. There is plenty of poor amateur work but plenty that is good also – meanwhile Lang did little herself to clarify matters.</p><p><br /></p><p>More fundamentally it seems to me much adverse comment about work by amateurs is driven not by scholarly objectivity, but rather by professionalisation of scholarship itself by such as Lang which (to my regret) I judge had gone way too far in since the mid 20th century.</p><p><br /></p><p>Any thoughts Doug? I sense due to some of the several influences cited above you have been put off historical metrology, without ever trying the matter out for yourself? But forgive me if that sounds impertinent – I trust in your generosity of spirit to accept I offer the above in good faith, as to what I fear is the objective truth of where we stand today.</p><p><br /></p><p>Rob[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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