This summer, when I was visiting the Landesmuseum in Hannover, Germany, I saw that they have a small hoard of 78 Roman silver coins on display. Looking at my pictures (see below), I think I can make out coins ranging from a Vespasian (?) denarius to a Julian II siliqua. Most coins are from the 2nd century. Also, it is quite fascinating that there are apparently no strongly debased denarii or antoniniani present in the hoard. The museum dates the hoard to the 4th or 5th century; it was found in Laatzen, Lower Saxony. Since the coins in this hoard are from an impressively long time span of almost 300 years, I was asking myself how long Roman Imperial denarii actually circulated, and whether they continued to be used systematically as regular currency after the 4th century monetary reforms. Does anyone perhaps know more about this? Do you have literature suggestions or did you maybe encounter similar things?
Just because some older coins were found in hoard, doesn't mean those coins circulated nonstop for 300 years. Perhaps they were burried for 30 to 50 years stretch as part of a family's savings, then dug out and circulated for a few years before ending up burried again for a few decades as part of another family's savings, and so on. But yes, previous finds have indicated that it is not uncommon to find coins that are 100 to 200 years older than the youngest coin in the hoard. That doesn't really surprise me considering people tended to bury their coins as there were no banks, so some of those coins were probably burried several times during their time in circulation. So what you find in the ground is the last guy or gal in this cycle who forgot to dig up their savings, or was killed or had to run away from a natural disasters, and never came back.
When 1st century imperial bronzes were found in 6th century Ostrogothic Italy, they were revalued; asses became 42-nummi coins and sesterii became 83-nummi coins. Domitian, Roman Empire (later revalued in the Ostrogothic Kingdom of Italy) AE as / 42 nummi Obv: CAESAR AVG F DOMITIAN COS II, laureate head left, countermark XLII (42) in left field Rev: VICTORIA AVGVST, Victory advancing right, standing on prow, holding wreath and palm branch, S-C across fields Mint: Rome Date: 73-74 AD (struck); 498-526 AD (revalued) Ref: RIC 677
I have pondered this question occasionally and haven't really found an answer, though presumably some did circulate for quite some time, though the old adage that bad money drives out the good probably applies. People would have hoarded the good silver coins during the crisis of the third century and tried to pay their taxes with radiate poor quality antoniniani. Meanwhile the government would try to collect the good silver still in circulation while passing off the inflationary coins as the new currency. It becomes a vicious circle. If you didn't have gold coins in your possession you were probably screwed.
Throughout history and with nearly all cultures currency of better value (often simply perceived) has always been hoarded. Debased coinage would have been used to pay taxes or when/where it didnt matter. Higher content coins like Republican era denarii would have been hoarded or spent when certain merchants were reluctant to accept the debased coinage at 'face' value. For example the vast majority of Marc Antony legionary denarii are in fairly poor condition having been circulating for 100 years or more. And the historical record is filled with failed experiments. The Chinese emperor Wang Mang (7-23 AD) instituted many monetary reforms, one of which was to issue a new set of fiat coins in which the metal content was irrelevant to the denomination and metal value. It was wildly unpopular and coins of previous issue were hoarded and used instead of the new. He had to issue a proclamation of death for anyone caught using the old money, but people still wouldnt use his currency.
In addition to the above excellent comments, I suspect the velocity of money (how often it changed hands) was much slower, causing less wear than in more modern times. With the advent of cashless transactions, the velocity of physical money has slowed in recent years, even as the velocity of money in general has accelerated. Future generations may find higher quality examples of our coins easier to find than worn ones.
I picked up a prescription at the pharmacy a few days ago, and the co-pay came to 83cents. Figuring I would just pay cash I fumbled with my wallet for a $1, when the pharmacist said, "You're going to have to try again with your card since I can't see it coming through." I told her I had decided to do it the old fashioned way with actual cash. It took her a bit to finally shift gears and dig out the 13cents change. It seems that some old traditions don't die very hard at all.
i can remember when US coinage got debased in '65.. we kids thought the new coins were kool because they had a glimmer of pink on the sides... little did we know...
So, did the pharmacist manually calculate that change from $1.00 for an $0.83 charge is $0.13, or did she use a calculator to get this wrong amount?
lol.....In Canada we no longer use the penny (since 2013)... it is not manufactured any more nor accepted as hard currency in retail establishments. Digitally it is still used but change is rounded up or down to the nearest nickel when using cash. So paying $1 on an $0.83 bill would obviously equal $0.15 change... win some, lose some.. It was costing 1.6 cents to manufacture each penny... taxpayers save approx $11 million a year by ending its circulation.
Thanks to all of you for your thought- and insightful answers and comments. Once more, I have learned something from this forum (and also smiled when reading some of the anecdotes above). Also, @ValiantKnight , this is a truly wonderful and fascinating piece of history you have there. I am glad and grateful you showed it.
This is an interesting topic. To expand on Ken's mention of the Marc Antony legionary denarius, here is an excerpt from a Coin World article: "All of the legionary denarii appear to have been struck circa 32 to 31 B.C. while Antony was in Greece preparing for his war against Octavian. The silver content of Antony’s legionary denarii is low for the era, seemingly because Antony had to stretch his limited resources. The poor silver quality of these coins would have been unpopular at the time, and their low silver content made them so undesirable in commerce that they remained in circulation for a very long time—sometimes more than 250 years. By the early third century A.D., silver coinage had declined enough in weight and purity that a slick legionary denarius was of similar intrinsic value to a current denarius." This link does not work anymore, for some reason, but I put it here for attribution reasons, author was David Vagi. This information is available in a multitude of places elsewhere: https://www.coinworld.com/news/world-coins/2012/01/marc-antony-legionary-denarii-ic.html These are readily available to collectors, usually in pretty wretched condition. Coin Talk member Bing is assembling a complete set. I have a few ugly ones that had obviously been used hard, perhaps for centuries:
