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Message:: [QUOTE="Pavlos, post: 6643078, member: 96635"]Silver was always scarce in Egypt, therefore bronze was a great alternative for low valued transactions and denominations. This was a win for the authorities, bronze had pure fiduciary value. Only silver tetradrachms were minted in the Ptolemaic kingdom (with very rare issues of didrachms and drachms.) These large silver denominations were easy to control, and using the Phoenician standard, the silver coins were not quickly exported since this weight standard was not used outside Egypt and Phoenicia. So the silver that was available stayed in Alexandrine territory as much as possible. Egypt therefore had a very close monetary system, both their silver as bronze. Since there are no smaller silver denominations, the authorities had to produce these fiduciary bronze coins to fill the gap, and these can sometimes weigh ~90g (largest bronze denomination). The largest bronze denomination is actually valued as a drachm, which is in my opinion a quite high value. I am sure that a Egyptian person living in that time were hoarding silver coins and wanted to get rid of the bronze token coins as much as possible.[/QUOTE]