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Message:: [QUOTE="EWC3, post: 3759192, member: 93416"]You are certainly correct to say that international acceptance of coin would be much influenced by intrinsic value.  I think you are also correct to say that Owls, solidi, ducats and reals got wide acceptance by being full bodied. So what I am disagreeing with is just the blanket statement that such was always the case. Nor am I surprised to find you make this comment, as it is exactly in line with many top academics.  For instance the Nobel Laureate economist Thomas Sargent made a very similar sort of comment in a recent book sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank. However, the evidence suggests that - for the 99% of the population who were not involved in international trade - the intrinsic value did not matter much, and generally ancient and medieval coins tariffed above their metal.  And there are certainly tens of thousands of pages of evidence supporting that second view. For now I will just cite the former Keeper of Coins at the BM Andrew Burnett who wrote a kind of BM beginners book "Coins" in 1991 which stated the general case, for the ancient and medieval world, that coin value was not at par, but  above metal value. So - I was surprised to be alone in making my criticism.  (Thanks in spades to An Yang man for my single like!) Rob T PS  About your denarius weighing 3.3g.  Can you explain why you call it a "denarius"?[/QUOTE]