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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;dougsmit, post: 1933244, member: 19463&quot;]<a href="http://www.forumancientcoins.com/numiswiki/view.asp?key=potin" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://www.forumancientcoins.com/numiswiki/view.asp?key=potin" rel="nofollow">http://www.forumancientcoins.com/numiswiki/view.asp?key=potin</a></p><p><br /></p><p>While tin is mentioned as one of the possible components, I consider potin more the equivalent of our modern &#039;pot metal&#039; which is more or less whatever you have available for unimportant purposes.&nbsp; I recall learning the term as a kid when my cap pistol was referred to a &#039;just pot metal&#039; rather like a dog might be called a mutt.&nbsp; I think you might be expecting too much to ask all the potin coin be exactly to a standard that you want to require all these centuries later.&nbsp; Copper seems to be the most common and predominant metal and I suspect that lead comes in high on the list as well.&nbsp; These terms are things applied by modern coin experts rather than records from &#039;the day&#039;.&nbsp;&nbsp; I am a bit amazed at how the references often refer to tetradrachms without mentioning a metal while drachms are regularly called &#039;bronze drachms&#039;.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>Repeating:&nbsp; to me, Billon is a metal that tries to look gray with varying degrees of success while Potin is less specific on both counts.&nbsp; I&#039;m perfectly willing to (and regularly do) use the two terms interchangeably when dealing with the low end &#039;pot&#039; metal coins but I do not call <b>gray </b>coins potin.&nbsp; They are either billon or silver depending on how generous I&#039;m feeling at that particular moment.&nbsp;&nbsp; I can not recall seeing a gray tetradrachm of Alexandria after Severus Alexander but I have not made a study of this as a specialty.&nbsp; Gray metal lasted longer at Antioch (Trebonianus Gallus???).&nbsp;&nbsp; Who would like to undertake the analysis of a few thousand coins and report of their content?&nbsp; Before you ask, my coins are not available for drilling, melting scraping or other forms of testing for your study.&nbsp; It is a project for a museum with a huge holding of expendable junk coins and a museum that cares enough about coins to fund the study.&nbsp; Good luck.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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