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Message:: [QUOTE="GDJMSP, post: 1964176, member: 112"]Well yes, but only to a limited degree, and only in modern times. You see, the original reason for minting coins of a gold alloy (or silver alloy for that matter) as opposed to pure gold was not to make the coins wear better, but to make more money for the entity minting the coins. It has only been within modern times that wear was ever an issue. Coins, from the moment they came into existence, had a face value based on an equal weight of pure metal. And for almost 2 millennia coins were made, for the most part, of pure metal. Some think that a 1,000 years ago man did not have the technology to refine gold and silver to their pure states. But that simply isn't true. Even a thousand years ago they had the ability to pick whatever level of purity they wanted, down to within 3 decimal points, and hit it right on the numbers at will. It was only when the Royals and nobility came up with the idea that they could make more money for themselves by debasing the purity of the metal that alloys came into use. When it started the alloy percentages were very low, Venetian ducats kind of led the way with a 1.4% debasement in the 13th century. For a couple hundred years other coins were still minted of pure gold. But then economics reared its head and debasement began in earnest.[/QUOTE]