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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;dougsmit, post: 2969390, member: 19463&quot;]The hardest point to get across is that these coins are not what we today think of as coins but served the purposes today handled by paper money, credit cards and electronic banking combined.&nbsp; I once had a Latin teacher ask what price they should use on their Latin Club newspaper.&nbsp; We settled on a quadrans.&nbsp; There was no ancient coin equivalent of a nickel or dime.&nbsp; If a 2nd century denarius was a day&#039;s pay for ordinary labor, an as would be about a half hour or maybe a $5 Lincoln not the one cent version.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>When inflation hit and coins lost much of their purchasing power, the mints were faced with an impossible task of keeping up with demand.&nbsp; Since every year saw a need for recoining with even lesser standards, the number of coins needed was ridiculous.&nbsp; If none had been melted down or rotted away, Europe today would have been a mountain of metal.&nbsp; Exaggeration? Maybe but the reason things are rare now is because of poor survival not for the lack of mint output.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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