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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;brassnautilus, post: 2148911, member: 74300&quot;]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.</p><p><br /></p><p>The ones that are collected today, for historical values, are still in their older struck form because they were uncirculated. </p><p><br /></p><p>Also, gold coins were most certainly for circulation. An aureus was only 25 denarius, and each denarius roughly translated to 20 today&#039;s dollar, so each aureus worth 500 dollars, that&#039;s big face value, but not that big.</p><p>Have to also take into count ancients didn&#039;t have checks or creditcards, banknotes weren&#039;t invented till 1,000 year later, so high value coins had practical uses, from time to time.</p><p><br /></p><p>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&#039;s several kilo in weight. If there aren&#039;t banks today then we&#039;d be using bills of that type of face value to buy cars and, well, expansive ancient coins.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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