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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;dougsmit, post: 1819646, member: 19463&quot;]This is another one on which we will just have to disagree. When the US reduced the silver in the quarter in 1855 or removed it in 1965, the man on the street considered the new coins quarters just like before.&nbsp; Those so inclined (including my mother) squirreled away all the old &#039;better&#039; coins spending only the new clad coins on the theory that they would be worth more someday.&nbsp;&nbsp; They were.&nbsp; Officially and to most people any quarter is a quarter and a nummus a nummus.&nbsp; I wonder if Constantine had the old 2 standards coins removed from circulation so he could profit from the change or if he left it to Gresham&#039;s Law to take care of that for him.&nbsp; I wonder how many 2 standards coins still circulated by the time the two victories coins came out and if the market place made any distinction between them when buying some bread.&nbsp; We do not have any records to answer these curiosities.&nbsp; We do, however, know that in the Byzantine period when more coins were overstruck rather than melted that small differences caused coins to be reworked but the denominations (big M) remained the same.&nbsp; Currently in the US it is illegal to melt down nickels to profit from their excess metal.&nbsp; I assume that means a lot of nickels are going to Canada.&nbsp; I also wonder if melting down earlier coins was legal under Roman law.&nbsp; I would think we would have a record of a law on this.&nbsp; Do we?[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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