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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;medoraman, post: 4519786, member: 26302&quot;]No sir, I am referring to references like &quot;Sogdian Traders&quot; that refer to hundreds of source documents about the trade on the Silk Road, how the Sogdians ran it, and how the Romans, Persians, and Chinese along the route interacted. Most Roman silver on the Silk Road stayed on the western section mainly, since those people knew which Roman coins were good or bad. Once Roman silver became debased, trade was mainly done with pure ingots of silver The eastern end and China mainly used Persian, since this is what they knew. Much of the Roman silver coinage entering into the Silk Road &quot;destined&quot; for China ended up being restruck as Persian. Source material in China was explicit that tariffs due were payable in &quot;Persian silver&quot;. </p><p><br /></p><p>Of course gold coins could be found, gold had a value just like jade. Remember, though, the Chinese had centuries of using silver sycee, and gold was not very common as a trade material. The silver for the sycee in China came mainly from &quot;tribute&quot; of the Burmese and other SE Asian communities, and Silk Road payments and tariffs. For Persian collectors like me, the sad fact is most of these coins entering China never left unless as part of a silver sycee.</p><p><br /></p><p>China had massive trade with the west for millenia. If such trade with the Greeks and later the Romans were done in gold then such an article would be so common as to not be worthy of comment. Gold coinage was always valuable as gold, and as such could be traded anywhere in the known world, such as hoards found in Scandinavia, the massive amounts found in India, etc. Just because they were found somewhere in small quantities does not mean they were the basis for a continuing trade. For that, if source material is available, that is a much more reliable source than a spot find. If, like India, Roman gold coins were so common as to inspire local imitations, I could buy the argument, but not one off small finds.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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