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Message:: [QUOTE="kevin McGonigal, post: 3109444, member: 72790"]Arashpour: the reference book I think you are looking for is, "Coinage in the Roman Economy" by Kenneth W. Harl, Johns Hopkins Press, 1996. Like you seem to be, I am very interested in the actual metallic composition of coinage and for Roman coinage it can be bewildering. I have tried to do my own specific gravity tests with not much success.These Nero tetradrachmas of Antioch were  originally tariffed at three denarii from 56-57 AD and weighed 14.5 grams and were .63 fine silver. From 59-63 their fineness was increased to .80 and their weight to 14.6 grams and they were now tariffed at 4 denarii. From 65-68 the fineness was reduced slightly, to match the slight debasement of the denarius, to .78 fine and the weight slightly reduced to 14.35 grams. Over in Alexandria the tetradrachmas were tariffed four to the denarius and started off from 56-57  at 13.9 grams of 23.15 fineness. From 58-68 their weight to 13.2 grams and purity to an average of under .17 fineness. that's why I said the Antiochene tetras were a cut above the others. For those wondering about the allusion above about how the coins were tested for fineness metallurgists now know that the fineness of a metal is different at its core than it is at the surface. That has to be taken into account when determining the alloy content of a coin.[/QUOTE]