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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Marsyas Mike, post: 2969379, member: 85693&quot;]Thank you Doug for those insights.&nbsp; I like that muffin metaphor.</p><p><br /></p><p>I too wonder to what extent people of the past paid attention to their coins.&nbsp; Some sources I read seem implausible to me - these sources will state with certainty that when the silver content of the denarius went from 84% under Marcus Aurelius to 80% under Commodus there was instant hoarding of the earlier issues.&nbsp; Gresham&#039;s Law as an absolute. </p><p><br /></p><p>I don&#039;t buy it - and I don&#039;t think hoard evidence supports this either.&nbsp; On the other hand, when you look at an antoninianus of Gordian III compared to one of Aurelian, there is no doubt which one is &quot;good.&quot;&nbsp; Thus all those beautiful silvery Gordians that got buried.&nbsp; Marc Antony&#039;s legionary denarii circulated for so long because, I suspect, not only because they were somewhat debased, but also because it was such a huge, easily-recognized type.&nbsp; Everybody knew these were a bit &quot;off&quot; and it was pretty easy to separate them out of a handful of coins. </p><p><br /></p><p>People are irrational (I include myself here!) - and they are often very irrational about money.&nbsp; To take a more modern instance, Chinese merchants of the 19th-early-20th century did much trade in the form of foreign crown-sized dollars.&nbsp; These were very carefully examined and often chopmarked.&nbsp; It is often stated that these merchants were scientifically making their choices based on fineness and weight.&nbsp; This is true to some extent, but there were non-rational choices involved as well - for a century or more, a big premium was paid for 8 reales with Charles IV (1791-1811) on the obverse from Mexico.&nbsp; Coins of the exact same fineness and weight of Ferdinand VII (1811-1821) were not nearly as popular and heavily discounted (note the scarcity of chopped Ferdinand VII&#039;s compared to Charles IV).&nbsp; Charles IV 8 reales were so popular that British and US firms (and probably Chinese) manufactured them up until the 1930s (according to some theories) - not &quot;bad metal&quot; fakes, but full silver replicas of century-old coins.&nbsp; The profit margin for the Charles IV image was so great it was worth making exact copies (which plague collectors to this day - Coin Comm. Forum has some fascinating threads about this). </p><p><br /></p><p>There is no &quot;rational&quot; reason for this, but plenty of custom, habit, and tradition.&nbsp; I&#039;d bet the Romans did the same.&nbsp; Were Fortuna or Spes reverses kept as lucky charms?&nbsp; Were good emperors similarly selected for jewelry, etc.?&nbsp; Who knows?[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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