Hi All, I wish to thank all who replied to my earlier post "Your Favorite Roman Emperor" http://www.cointalk.com/t196042-2/#post1319410 Please continue adding. It will be a great source of info for those, such as myself, who are beginning to collect ancient coins. There is though one thing that I've been wondering about. How did so many ancient coins survive over time? Please enlighten! Thx in advance, Joe
One story..... When the Roman Empire was expanding, the troops needed to be paid. When the soldiers went into battle, they buried the money for safekeeping but some were killed and their cash was still buried only to be found a couple of thousand years later by farmers plowing their fields or by excavators. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hereford-worcester-15743456 http://goldandsilverblog.com/spectacular-anglo-saxon-gold-treasure-discovery-on-display-0327/
One of the most famous hoard discoveries is the "Reka Devnia Hoard". Basically the same as scenario as the above reply. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reka_Devnia_Hoard There is many many others.
Lots of reasons there are so many ancients. The primary one being logistics. Simply put, there were no banks. If you had a large amount of cash to sasfeguard you had to PAY someone to safeguard it, and even then it was not insured if stolen. Instead of that, everyone simply found a tree they knew, or a stone, or some other landmark and buried their savings. This is known because of large amounts of these are found protected in pots buried in the ground. Some of these hoards are MASSIVE. One hoard of gold Roman coins numbered in the hundred of thousands, and were so common most of these gold coins were melted down. Even today, its is known a hoard of ancient Jewish coins was found a few years ago numbering in the hundreds of thousands. Even ignoring these hoards, coins then were like they are now, and were simply dropped and lost. A lot of this ground is being metal detected and these coins found. Remember "Ancient coins", even if limited to around the Meditteranean, were minted in the tens or hundreds of millions cumulatively each year for 1000 years. There we, in total, a LOT minted, billions. Law of large numbers will tell you many should survive, and do.
Although the background history of this coin from a hoard described in the article below is now thought to be incorrect, it makes for an interesting story: http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art31629.asp guy
Here's a coin from a more controversial hoard :devil:: http://coins.calkinsc.com/old_site/doc/pristina.html http://www.beastcoins.com/Hoards/Pristina/Pristina.htm guy
