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Author Topic: How Long Did Ancient Coins Stay In Circulation?  (Read 1143 times)

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Offline VOTman

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How Long Did Ancient Coins Stay In Circulation?
« on: May 16, 2021, 09:55:16 am »
Modern coins seem to have a circulation life of about 30 years.  Do we know how long Roman coins circulated?

As ancient coins became worn from use I assume they eventually became rejected by merchants.  Then what?  Were they then collected and sold as scrap metal, melted down, and remade into new coins or other metal tools?  Could the Constantine I follis in your collection today once have been an Antoninus Pius Sestertius?

Any thoughts?

Offline SC

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Re: How Long Did Ancient Coins Stay In Circulation?
« Reply #1 on: May 16, 2021, 10:25:23 am »
Two parts to this question.

How log did they stay in circulation and what happened to them when they were "done".

The short answer to the first question is that they stayed in circulation as long as the weight standard was still being used.  There were other factors that drove coins out of circulation while weight standards remained valid - Gresham's Law highlights that higher fineness coins, where applicable, for example earlier denarii would disappear before lower fineness coins - but that was custom and habit.  You could still use an early first century denarius in the early third century if you wanted to.  In addition, the state would try to take back higher fineness coins and re-melt them in order to gain a profit for making new coins.

But once the weight standard changed the coin was generally "useless".  A Julio-Claudian sestertius might still be usable in the early-third century as the sestertius was still a denomination.  But once was eliminated in the mid-third century the coin was useful only as scrap.  However, coins could come back into use if the weight standard later changed to include something similar.  The tiny "barbarous radiates" of the 270s AD are also found in late fourth century hoards as they matched the weight of the then-smallest denomination.

For a longer answer you need to start studying hoards.  For example, Marc Antony's denarii - the legionary denarius of 32-31 BC - is found in a great number of hoards through the second and (if I recall correctly) into the third century BC. 

Old coins generally were taken back and re-minted by the state.  This was generally not done for old Emperors or even for Emperors that suffered damnation memoriae, but was done once the coinage got too worn or the weight or fineness standard changed. The state could separate out the metals as required.  So, for example, when the sestertius disappeared in the third century the zinc, from the orichalcum alloy used for many second century sestertii, must have been used for something else as it does not appear in the official Roman coinage from then on - though it does appear in some third century provincial Roman coinages which may have used melted down sestertii.

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(Shawn Caza, Ottawa)

Offline Ron C2

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Re: How Long Did Ancient Coins Stay In Circulation?
« Reply #2 on: May 16, 2021, 05:08:18 pm »
As an example of what Shawn is talking about, the Reka Devnia hoard is possibly the most famous denarius hoard ever found.  There were 81,044 denarii in the hoard, and because denarii minted up to 251 were in the hoard, it's likely the hoard was buried around 251-252 AD (or CE if you prefer).

There were still 29 Mark Antony legionary denarii in that hoard, and they were minted in around 32 BC (or BCE if you prefer).  So 283 years later, these coins were still circulating.  Yes, attrition was probably high, but enough survived and were still being used almost 3 centuries later.

You also often see Aes and Sestertii worn smooth that have a fresh counter-mark.  So it's clear sometimes worn out coins were re-endorsed by a local government and put back into circulation.  The markings might be worn off, but it still served its purpose as a fiat currency coin of the proper size and weight.

You rarely see pre-tetrachy coins in post-tetrarchy hoards though.  When Diocletian overhauled the currency system, it's likely any precious metal coins taken in by the government were melted down and recycled.
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