How did some ancients retain their nearly uncirculated details ?

I have a general question.
Did humans back then say "Well, lets keep this one out of circulation so that in 2000 years from now it will still be uncirculated looking!" Or was it just pure chance that after all the raids, wars, disease and reconstruction people found such coins in perfect condition and they were just circulated through collecting until today ?

Did people in the middle ages also view ancient coins as valuable and safeguarded them until the modern times ?

Is it possible to simply dig up a gold ancient worth a small fortune after 2000 years ??

I am sure all the crusades and both world wars thinned out valuable coins in Europe..

 

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Since you posted ancient gold, many were held onto as keepsakes due to their value, even then. Most were given to high ranking officials and military. And the copper & silver coins were left for the average person to use. But if some average person did get a gold piece, it would be special.

As for condition, majority were buried for safe keeping due to no banks back then. Often times the owner may have died or forgot about it. Many were also offerings to gods. So thats why many can be found pristine.

I do know some from the middle ages did collect them. I think I read some even used them in circulation as well, after all silver is silver.

 

In addition to what Mat said, gold is also a highly non-reactive metal. It does not tarnish or corrode the way silver and copper do.

 

There's some misinformation in this post. Some were undoubtedly held as keepsakes, but nowhere near "most." Unless you can provide a citation?

Coincidentally, I just responded to a very similar question on reddit. Here's what I said there:

 

As I was typing, Ardatirion said it all and better. One thing to add, however, is that few of us are prepared to realize just how many of these things were made and how many huge hoards have been found over the last few hundred years. There are stories of a rain washing out a soil bank that gushed coins. In earlier days, most of these were melted down but now we sort them out and only trash and things found illegally that need to be 'sanitized' would be melted. I am told there are types of coins that all known specimens come from one find. Relatively few finds in the past 500 years have been recorded but volume V of the British Museum Catalog Roman Empire (page xlviii) caught my eye with a listing: "At Mazrieux, near Lyons, five thousand denarii, all of Clodius Albinus." This has all the signs of a mint sack that never made it to paying the soldiers for whom it was destined. How many of our current supply of Clodius Albinus as Augustus were in that find?" How many other minty fresh bags remain out there? We will never know when the last coin is found. Most recorded finds are mixed up piggy banks with a few to 80,000 (Reka Devnia Hoard) coins covering a span of years rather than all one type. How many mint sacks of aurei of Pescennius Niger were buried in 195 AD only to be found in 1695 AD and recycled into modern coins. That, I do not want to know!

 

What Doug had said made more sense. Most coins in pristine condition probably came out of modern hoard finds. Gold is soft and more susceptible to physical forces than billon or copper, and majority of those went through circulation had deteriorated and their material recycled.

The ones that are collected today, for historical values, are still in their older struck form because they were uncirculated.

Also, gold coins were most certainly for circulation. An aureus was only 25 denarius, and each denarius roughly translated to 20 today's dollar, so each aureus worth 500 dollars, that's big face value, but not that big.
Have to also take into count ancients didn't have checks or creditcards, banknotes weren't invented till 1,000 year later, so high value coins had practical uses, from time to time.

A cheap slave costs several hundred denarii. Expansive ones few thousand. Good horses cost comparable sums, and these were early rome prices, before all the inflation kicked in. You can imagine a businessman having carried few hundred aureus on a trip, that's several kilo in weight. If there aren't banks today then we'd be using bills of that type of face value to buy cars and, well, expansive ancient coins.

 

Everyone has said it all better than I could have....

I recall reading about a 'hoard' find just before the new Millenium (1998?) of over 47,000 coins in England----although they were third century Roman Bronzes.

Gorgeous coins 'tobiask'!!! My congratulations!!!

 

great looking coins. i do not collect ancients either. someday. to many other get first.

 

For many years the denarius was roughly a days pay for a low ranking soldier. If we use today's minimum wage and allow a bit for taxes etc. a poverty level employee makes more than $20 a day. That number was good a few years back but I'd be more inclined now to think of an aureus at $1000+ or about what you will pay for a worn out one today. In 68 AD a scratched up aG Nero and a mint state Otho were both worth the same in the market. That changed.

There are quite a few ancient gold coins in the market today that show signs of having been once mounted for jewelry. See the prong marks (4 each side). Did Theodosius II's nose wear off in antiquity or while rubbing against some 19th century chest? I suppose that is better than being melted.

 

Sooooo....let's see some near mint-state coins.

Septimius Severus, 193-211
AR denarius; Emesa mint: 194-195
Obv.: IMP CAE L SEP SEV PERT AVG COS II; Laureate head right.
Rev.: FORTVN R-EDVC; Fortuna standing, head left, rudder in right hand, cornucopiae in left.
Reference: RIC IV(a), 377 (p. 142)



Julia Domna, AD 193-217
AR Denarius, 19 mm, 3.25 g, 12h; Rome mint: c. 205.
Obv.: IVLIA AVGVSTA; Draped bust right.
Rev.: MATER DEVM; Cybele, leaning on tympanum, holding branch and scepter, seated left on throne flanked by two lions.
Reference: RIC IVa 564 (Septimius); RSC 123.

 

Galerius, 305-311
Æ Follis; 27mm, 9.7g, 12h; Siscia mint, AD 295.
Obv.: MAXIMIANVS NOB CAES; Laureate bust right.
Rev.: GENIO POPVLI ROMANI; Genius holding patera and cornucopiae / B // star SIS.
Reference: RIC VI Siscia 90b (p. 464).



Constantine I
AE Follis, 19.5mm, 3.61g; Trier mint: 322-3
Obv.: CONSTAN-TINVS AVG; helmeted, cuirassed bust right.
Rev.: BEATA TRAN-QVILLITAS; Globe set on altar inscribed VO/TIS/XX, above, three stars // dot PTR dot.
Reference: RIC VII Trier 368 (p. 197)
Notes: ex-Langtoft hoard.

 

Licinius I
AE Follis, 21mm, 3.18g Siscia mint: 315-316.
Obv.:IMP LIC LICINIVS P F AVG; Laureate head right.
Reverse.: IOVI CON-SERVATORI; Jupiter standing facing, head left, nude but for chlamys across left shoulder, Victory on globe in right hand, scepter in left, eagle with wreath at feet to left; Γ in right field; • SIS • in exergue
Reference: RIC VII, 17.
Ex Harlan Berk, CICF Show, April 2013.



Licinius II
Ae Follis, 19mm, 3.5g, 12h; Heraclea mint: AD 317.
Obv.: DN VAL LICIN LICINIVS NOB C; laureate, draped, small bust left, globe and scepter in left hand, mappa in right.
Rev.: PROVIDEN-TIAE CAESS; campgate with three turrets // MHTΔ.
Reference: RIC VII Heraclea 19.

 

I can only imagine all the roman carriers, travellers, merchants that were bludgeoned by tribesmen or bandits in the swamps of Germania, their coins and goods now scattered underneath the ground in forrests, underneath schools and buildings all across Gaul..etc.
i wonder what metal detecting near Mainz or Trier would bring, those towns having been important forts.

 

Minty After 2000 yrs.


Minty after 1000 yrs.

 

I'm sure you might still find something there, but much of the Roman ruins have been excavated. Plus Mainz was completely destroyed during WWII and since rebuilt. I would suspect much of the Roman secrets were revealed in those turbulent times.

 

I often wonder how exciting it must have been for earlier generations to uncover and find roman sites and many hoardes. Not for personal gain, but for historic and scholastic advances in an age where no government would instantly interrogate you and confiscate your finds. (This is coming from an experience when i went metal detecting in germany with a friend in 2010 when i lived there, the german forrest service called the police and took our statements and said we need to hand over everything we found.)

Archaeology seems great but for a coin collector it might not be worth it, it feels like I am born too late to make any significant discoveries.

 

You should go digging around in India or South East Asia. There are some gnarly coins yet to be properly described and new types crop up all the time.

 

Nero's coins were actually good, weight and precious metal content wise, compared to old roman.

I wonder if people really hated him so much to devalue their own money just to show contempt. Not to mention, a lot of his stories were made up. Some even think he was a great guy, passionate and charitable.

 

Well, here are a bunch of my minty-fresh Romans ...

Licinius I


Caracalla


Constantius I


Galeria Valeria


Maxentius


Otacilia Severa


Philip II


Maximinus II

 

WOW!!!

So many gorgeous and 'mint state' coins out there within our little group.

I heard they still find many 'perfect' coins of Nero at Vundolanda in England---perfectly 'golden' as the day they were minted (the damp and oxygen free environment in which they were buried)...

I wonder if Pishpash has been able to obtain a 'sample'???