I have not been an active collector since the late 80’s and have lost touch with prices. While catching up on current prices on Vcoins.com, I noticed a curious thing. I have a group of tetradrachms from Antioch, 1st half of the 3rd century, Elagabalus, Gordian III, Trajan Decius and Herenius Etruscus. It appears from what I saw, these coins and those of other emperors during the same period are almost invariably in excellent condition. They are well centered, well struck and have little to no wear. It appears difficult to find any worn specimens. I cannot help coming to conclusion that these coins, despite being plentiful, were never in general circulation. I’ve wondered if they were minted to facilitate trade between cities and not for the general populace. Can anyone or everyone (except me) shed any light on this?
In the years you were away, many new hoards of coins have come to market. It is not unusual for one hoard to include nothing but mint state coins (think bank bag) and another to be a well mixed group of coins in various grades (think coins from a restaurant cash register after a big weekend). When we see a huge number of one or the other it does not necessarily man there were never well used and worn coins but just that the hoards currently being distributed in the market were that way. I have been told there are some coins otherwise unknown except for the coins in that hoard so every coin you see of the type should bear that set of hoard characteristics (e.g. patina). You are correct that larger silver coins would circulate less than smaller denominations. I believe the main factor in your observation is mostly reflecting what was found rather than what ever existed. If less than 1% of coins ever made still exist, you can not expect a fully even distribution. Welcome back.
I'm not a specialist, but it's my understanding that the tetradrachms of Antioch were profoundly debased over the course of the 3rd century. When a currency is debased, people tend to hoard the earlier examples. That's why, for example, there are so many pristine 1964 U.S. dimes and quarters. So even if these early 3rd century tetradrachms circulated, it is likely that many of them did not circulate for long.
Antioch, modern Antakya, is in Turkey today but was originally Syrian. Syria has been blown full of holes in recent years. There has been a glut of ancient Syrian coins on the market partially due to the war. I have quite a lot of Antioch coins and I wonder sometimes how many of them are "war coins." I think there are some moral questions that could, and should, be asked about collecting these coins but it's impossible to know exactly where they were found. Antioch did a lot of business all over the middle east.
