test marks on siliquae

[Fides]

Hello everyone,

I'm undertaking a study of clipped siliquae - as part of this, I'm having to seek out as many examples of test marked siliquae as possible.

I've been consulting museum collections and publications, and I also turn to you. So far, I'm finding examples of siliquae with test marks cut into their surfaces rather hard to come by (in contrast, nearly all British-found siliquae are clipped).

So I suppose my question is in two parts:
1. Do any of you have siliquae with test marks in your collections, and would you be good enough to share an image?;
2. The relative scarcity of siliquae with test marks (as is my perception) - why might this be? At the end of Roman Britain, for instance, when widespread clipping began, did people simply trust that their siliquae were pure, not requiring exploratory marks?

I'd appreciate any feedback you have!

Thanks,
M

[PeterD]

Have you checked in the book about the Hoxne hoard? I can't give you the exact title because I am away from home but it catalogues thousands of siliqua mostly with pictures.

[glebe]

It is commonly (and probably correctly) assumed that the clipping of siliquae started in post Roman Britain, but why exactly were they clipped?
Did the clipped coins passed as siliquae (if not there would little advantage in clipping them)? Were the offcuts then used as bullion, or perhaps for new coins (and if the latter, where)?

Ross G.

[PeterD]

There are various reasons put forward. One is that they were clipped to match coins on the continent. Clipping may have been official or unofficial but the clippings seem to have been used to make more coins.  Interestingly larger coins such as the milliarense weren't clipped. Some counterfeit siliqua were copies of coins already clipped. Siliqua were too small and thin to make normal fourrees, so sometimes they were made by soldering thin silver impressions together.

The book that I mentioned above is They late Roman gold and silver coins from the Hoxne hoard treasure by Peter Guest. There were over 14, 000 coins in the hoard.

[Fides]

Thanks all. Yes, the Hoxne publication is well known to me! I prefer to catalogue siliquae by its numbering, rather than that of RIC.
I've read scholars like King, who talk about the clipping of coins to make them fall in line with other post-Roman currencies. In fact, one of the hoards she studies (the 'Fleetwood' Hoard of 388 siliquae) is one I am responsible for at the Harris Museum, in Preston.

I'm preparing a study for publication, and, in my search for examples of test-marked siliquae, am casting my net just about as far as I can. This means all the normal places like museum collections and published assemblages, but not many people seem to tap into the wealth of material in private collections.

...hence my question - if any of you possess test-marked siliquae, I should greatly like to know!

Thanks,

M