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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;kevin McGonigal, post: 4578102, member: 72790&quot;]I an just wondering if it had become the official mint practice to apply a thin silvering over the billon tetradrachma coins as they were about to do with the antoninianus. I have some&nbsp; well circulated coins of that tetradrachma denomination from that period from Antioch, ca. 248 AD, and they are a very dull gray. Perhaps they look silvery when first minted but knowing what the mints were about to do to the double denarius coins I was wondering if they had already started that with these coins. According to Harl these tetras were anywhere between 27 and 17% silver and my experience is that it&#039;s hard to get these coins to look silvery without doing something to them. Perhaps an enrichment process on the surface silver that didn&#039;t last that long. Anyone know anything about when the silvering or surface enrichment practice first appeared on officially minted coins?[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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