Nice addition to your collection Vlad,
I have just finished an interesting book on the Byzantine economy hoping to solve the riddle of the coin weight variations of the late 11th century but unfortunately nothing definitive for this time period. However it did leave me to believe each city had its own economy, the gold coinage was state controlled and the gold was mined and minted by the government but it also mentions that independent contractors were in charge of mining the lesser metals. Perhaps they minted the coins of AE as well.?
This fact and the knowledge of Alexius I had his relatives control of the Byzantine territories again leaves me to believe they were minted to each communities needs with his permission. This would be easily answered if we knew were each coin was found but being at the end of the chain as collectors we lose that knowledge.
These weight variations were not done by accident, scale weights seem not to be that rare and the visible differences in the coins I find it hard to believe the common man would not notice. Especially since the coins were in circulation at the same time, their circulation must have been limited to certain areas.
A few weeks ago I
had an interesting conversation with a gentleman with a PHD in economics that makes me question my previous quoted statement , even though he was not an ancient coin collector he did collect post 1500 CE coins, when I discussed tetartera with him and my questions about the
weight variations he immediately suggested that these coins were not a fixed
denomination but simply based on
weight.
This really
had me think about the
denomination and about
weight variations of coins made outside of
Constantinople (the coins from
Constantinople tend to be much more consistent and we also know those coins
had a silver content that varied the same way the silver content in trachea. These coins and their design were regulated).
However even the coin this discussion based on SB S-1931 has shown just from
Forum members collective
collections alone to vary in
weight from 1g to 6g, some
imitative but
weight variations on coins that are not
imitative we are
still talking a considerable and noticeable difference in these coins. When
Hendy originally came up with the idea of half tetartera he took groups of tetartera styles and used their
average weight to create two
denominations from the coins we call
Tetarteron , he even played with the idea of their being multiple
denominations of tetartera, by the time her wrote
VOL IV of
DOC he broke them down to three
denominations , Metropolitan tetartera with small silver content, AE tetartera from
Thessalonica and half tetartera for various unknown Greek mints and
Thessalonica.
His theroy on the breakdown of the
denomination was logical but what if the AE tetartera was not a
face value
denomination at all, Unlike previous
Byzantine coinage or even our current coinage it lacks a
face vale ( A USA penny says 1 cent on it) What if it was truly based on
weight exchange alone?
I realize this makes the whole series a
bit of a mess but it does
help explain the mystery of the
weight variations of this coin and it also gives more of an explanation on how all these different
weight variations could could circulate at one time.
Just sharing a thought, I realize we are talking about a
medieval penny that was
part of the country's economy for only a century with barely a mention in any of its
history but this
denomination or
denominations was issued in the millions and was
part of the everyday persons life. It has only been in the last few decades that collectors have taken notice and interest in
Byzantine bronze coinage, this is just one of the many riddles we are left with.
