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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;EWC3, post: 3249489, member: 93416&quot;]To the best of my knowledge almost all Sasanid drachm issues fall pretty randomly in the 89% to 99% purity range, and its hard to say if any of that implies intentional debasement.&nbsp; My guess is that the approach to refining silver was highly repetitive - a sort of Newton-Raphson thing.&nbsp; So the stuff at 89% may well have been the product of laziness or incompetence rather than debasement.&nbsp; For the guy in the street I suspect they were all thought of as &quot;pure silver&quot;.</p><p><br /></p><p>Having said that, there are reports of specific incidents of debasement under Shapur I and Peroz - the latter to do with his &quot;hungeld&quot; problem quite likely.&nbsp; Am a bit dubious about your guess though, as the vast bulk of surviving coin is from K I, H IV and especially K II, and all that seems to be to the higher standard.&nbsp; But who knows?</p><p><br /></p><p>Rob T[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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