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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;kevin McGonigal, post: 6640608, member: 72790&quot;]It may seem strange but many Romans were still accepting coinage at its nominal value as opposed to its intrinsic value as late as the third quarter of the Third Century AD. My reading of the value of coinage and the prices of goods in the market place does not reveal as much inflation as we would imagine at that time period. In a sense, over time, the Roman populace had become, like us today, willing to accept, in place of twenty dollar gold pieces and gold sovereigns 150 years ago, today with pieces of paper with zero intrinsic value but still valued by the populace as having real worth. As long as the Roman government accepted the coinage in payment of taxes the coinage had real value, perhaps an almost entirely fiat value but, still value. A sestertius of bronze circa 260 AD of about 16 grams may have had more intrinsic value as metal than a lightly silvered double denarius of four grams but that antoninianus was tariffed as eight times the sestertius and still accepted as such, apparently both in the market place and by the tax collector and may still have been convertible to gold. This fourre was trash. Nobody wanted it or would have accepted it as lawful currency. A silvered antoninianus would probably have been preferred over one with no silver showing but even those with no visible silver did have some, albeit a small amount, silver within the alloy of the coin. As above, the official antoninianus had more value as lawful currency.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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