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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;dougsmit, post: 777891, member: 19463&quot;]Inflation caused the need for a very large number of coins to be produced and for each to have less silver than earlier ones.&nbsp; Workmanship suffered from the rush and the look of the coins suffered from the poor alloy.&nbsp; There is a place in alloy (around 25%??) where silver stops looking &#039;silver&#039; and starts getting granular and hard to make look right.&nbsp; Below that, the mint started using a much weaker alloy but coating the coins with a siver wash to make them look better (then - by now most just look like copper coins).&nbsp; Gallienus was in power for the period when this inflation and workmanship pressure was making the switch from poor alloy to plated.&nbsp; Coins before (250&#039;s) and after (Aurelian&#039;s coinage reform) tend to look better.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>If you check the detailed references you will see that coins were produced by more and more mints with more and more workshops as time passed.&nbsp; Collectors note that coins become more common as well because so many were made.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>Rome, and most ancient coinages, expected the coins to contain the face value of metal expected of that denomination (unlike modern times when we willingly accept silver coins made of base metal and paper money backed only by the good faith of the government).&nbsp; Every so often the coins were all called in and replaced with a new coinage system that tends to look better.&nbsp; Usually the last coins before a &#039;reform&#039; tend to look scrappy compared to what they did a short while before.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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