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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;dougsmit, post: 689763, member: 19463&quot;]<b>alloy</b></p><p><br /></p><p>This reference mentions some of the possibilities but I&#039;m not willing to accept things written just because they are from a lofty source.</p><p><a href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1953Metic...1...60B" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1953Metic...1...60B" rel="nofollow">http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1953Metic...1...60B</a></p><p><br /></p><p>The article discounts the likelihood of meteoric origin a position which I now accept but it goes on and says that the Baktrians may have supposed the material to be silver because they made similar coins from silver.&nbsp; That statement makes me question any assertion by the author.&nbsp; Show me a silver coin of either type.&nbsp; Show me a Baktrian silver type struck in nickel alloy.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>Applying the same nonscientific method to the question, I tend to believe that the Baktrians would not have valued nickel so lowly or alloyed the material with terrestrial copper if it were important to them that the metal was from the heavens.&nbsp; There is no significant copper in meteorites.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>For our purposes as collectors it makes no difference where the Baktrians got the metal.&nbsp; It was an experiment that failed to convince them to continue rather like the first milled silver under Elizabeth I was not the immediate end of hammered coins.&nbsp; Today, we are living in a time where many people have trouble telling silver from nickel or just don&#039;t care.&nbsp; Projecting that view on the Baktrians does not strike me as wise.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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