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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;EWC3, post: 3268803, member: 93416&quot;]I have no knowledge of the specific episode of Roman clipping – but have looked at clipping more generally – and on the basis of that suggest you have to take a step further back.</p><p><br /></p><p>To put it crudely, the question is</p><p><br /></p><p>Was the clipping to do with:</p><p><br /></p><p>a) the state short changing people, or</p><p><br /></p><p>b) people short changing the state?</p><p><br /></p><p>As I mentioned elsewhere a few times – the best studied episode I know of is the clipping of gold guineas in England in the 1770’s. That was all to do with people short changing the state. It was centrally masterminded by a criminal gang, but it also got a lot of popular support. Clipped coin was widely accepted at least in the North of England. Some people gained, and few lost, except the collector of taxes for remit South to London – he lost big time. It had nothing to do with a reduction of official weight standards.</p><p><br /></p><p>There was also a lot of clipping of silver just prior to the English 1696 re-coinage. I never got a full story on that – but again - its nothing to do with a reduction of official weight standards – in fact the weight was about to be raised, in practice. It looks more like people knew they were going to be hit with a big bill to pay for the re-coinage – so they “got their rebate in first” so to speak.</p><p><br /></p><p>A third huge episode of clipping took place in the early Arab caliphate. Again, its not tied to any official reduction in weight standard – looks a lot more like another tax payer revolt to me.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>Unless this event differs substantially from others I have seen – my guess would be the opposite to other peoples. I would guess it started with the population widely rebelling against the tax collector and clipping their coins prior to payment. Only after that happened did the state throw in the towel and strike its own coin to the lower standard that had evolved.</p><p><br /></p><p>That’s just a guess of course – but it is more in line with what people in better known instances actually did.&nbsp; Does anyone have facts to contradict this suggestion?</p><p><br /></p><p>Rob T[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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