Ancient coin clipping (and another literary reference)

[rjohara]

We've all seen ancient coins (or pictures of ancient coins) that have been chopped to test their metal. But was it also a practice in ancient times for unscrupulous people to clip coins: to file or chop small pieces off in an effort to collect enough silver or gold to make money? I can't imagine that this *wasn't* a practice, although I don't recall seeing any illustrations of it. Are there any?

This question arose when I recently came across another literary numismatic metaphor, this one from Shakespeare's Henry V (act 4, scene 1):

Indeed, the French may lay twenty French crowns to one
they will beat us, for they bear them on their shoulders; but it
is no English treason to cut French crowns, and to-morrow the
King himself will be a clipper.

A clever pun that combines crown-of-the-king with crown-as-coin, and make's Henry himself the "clipper" of both.

RJO

[Manzikert]

Hi

I don't think that clipping was ever a great problem with Greek and Roman coinage because of the relatively thick flans and naturally rounded edges which would have made any attempts to clip rather obvious.

Once you get to the smaller siliquae the flan is thin enough to clip easily, but there still doesn't seem to be much of a problem except in Britain, where they are regularly clipped in the 380's-420's (I don't think any one is sure of the date, so I leave a wide range). Whether this was to reduce existing coins to a new lower weight standard or as a source of profit for the holders of the coin is also uncertain, but the weight standard adjustment was probably the main impetus, and of course people will have taken advantage of this to make a profit where they could.

Thin Byzantine silver (eg miliaresia) is clipped, and even some of the billon trachys, and wherever there was a chance to nibble a little profit off the edge of a thin coin, someone will have done it.

Sasanian silver is sometimes clipped, though again this can be partly an attempt to reduce the weight from the c.4.2 gm Sasanian standard to the c.3.8 gm Arabic dirhem standard.

Mediaeval european coinages are mostly thin, and therefore easy to clip, so people clipped them, and clipping becomes epidemic in England in the 16th century, just when Shakespere was writing.

I think it boils down to the fact that, where it is easy to trim a bit off a coin without the fact being too obvious to the person you are going to pass it to next, then there is the temptation to do so. The physical form of Greek and Roman silver and gold make this diffucult, so it will not have been a major problem. A thin spread flan is easy to trim a bit off, and the irregular centring and spread of most hand-struck thin coins means there is often a little piece outside the edge of the design which can be trimmed without it being noticeable.

Also, as a coinage begins to be more passed by face value rather than being check weighed at each transaction the temptation will increase. The weight-difference is too small to be noticed just having the coin in hand. If I remember rightly, at the time of the Great Recoinage in Britain in the 1690's some of the bags of old coin brought in to the officials for recoinage were up to 50% underweight (I'll check this when I get home tonight), but were accepted at face value, the difference being made up by the Government by taxation, notably the Window Tax.

Anyway, enough of a ramble

Best wishes

Alan

[basemetal]

Interesting posts.
Forgive me, but on a more technical level, have some coins that I thought were numminous or minimus (sorry bout the spelling) but I was told by folks here that they were "clipped" to conform with later (slightly post-roman empire) coins.  And indeed they do conform to the replies I received. They were once larger.
My question is since "more is usually better" why would say an AE3 be clipped to say 8 mm size.  I have no doubt that it occured considering the coins I have, but why exactly? 
Thanks for any discussion.

[Manzikert]

Hi Basemetal

I don't think I can answer your question fully, but I have a few comments.

The 'minimi' and even 'minimissimi' (roughly 'little ones' and 'littlest ones' can come as cut down coins, or such cut down coins struck with miniature false dies. I think it is possible that to pass as a coin a piece of metal had to have an impression of some sort. Whether this was just the parts still visible after the cutting down of an AE3, or a tiny piece of metal struck with false dies wasn't that important: as long as it was impressed it might still pass.

Certainly, in Britain at least, there was no post-Roman Ae coinage standard for them to be clipped down to. The silver siliquas seem to have been clipped down to a lower standard though.

What the economic conditions were that would lead people to accept such tiny pieces I'm afraid I can't really say, but it is possible that their use might have been in small areas where lack of better coin forced their use, whilst other areas still had reasonable supplies of official issues. I suspect that the phenomenon was probably short-lived anyway.

Does anybody else have any ideas?

Best wishes

Alan

[basemetal]

And I might add Manzikert, that in a recent lot of uncleaned, I have about 12. Most, if not all were AE3's that were clipped to nummious size.  Perhaps because copper was needed and a decree of some sort in the form of a tax was instituted?  Maybe to identify with the local coinage?-just an unsubstantiated guess.  The "short time" mentioned makes me wonder if some local or area ruler who could be just as unstable as any of the Roman emperors, took it in his head to "decree" that by god all coins of a certain metal or value in his kingdom would be this size-like it or not.  I know, speculation. 
But in the history of coins again, more is usually better logic-wise.