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Author Topic: Smallest Silver fouree in antiquity?  (Read 965 times)

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Offline Kevin D

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Smallest Silver fouree in antiquity?
« on: March 05, 2022, 04:25:47 pm »
What are some of the smallest (lightest) silver coins from antiquity that are fouree or plated? Has anyone seen any obols or litras that are ancient fouree?

I've seen electrum 1/24th stater fouree (c. 0.60g)...are there any silver fouree that small?

Offline Jay GT4

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Re: Smallest Silver fouree in antiquity?
« Reply #1 on: March 05, 2022, 09:50:24 pm »
I've seen the copper core of a 1/16 Phoenician shekel but I don't have pictures.

Offline Altamura

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Re: Smallest Silver fouree in antiquity?
« Reply #2 on: March 06, 2022, 05:25:09 am »

Offline Kevin D

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Re: Smallest Silver fouree in antiquity?
« Reply #3 on: March 06, 2022, 03:41:34 pm »
Thanks to both of you for this information.

Offline Curtis JJ

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Re: Smallest Silver fouree in antiquity?
« Reply #4 on: March 11, 2022, 09:58:20 am »
Not sure about the smallest silver, but there were fourrée / plated imitations of even the earliest electrum coinage, including very small denominations. I'm not sure if I've seen a plated 192nd stater, but I've seen multiple fourrée 48th staters advertised for sale/auction and at least one or two 96th staters. CNG recently sold a fourrée Phanes 1/48 stater at 5mm and 0.27g (EA 511, Lot 115). Last year Heritage sold a plated 48th of the plain globular/punch variety at 5mm, 0.26g (ACSearch LINK), and in 2020 a slightly smaller Alyattes 1/96th stater at 5mm, 0.20g (ACSearch LINK)! I only see one record (LINK) advertised as a fourree tetartemorion (no hemitetartemoria), from Agora 35 (in 2015), Lot 71, Caria, confronted bulls, 7mm, 0.40g. (EDIT: I see it's the one Altamura referenced above!)
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Offline cicerokid

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Re: Smallest Silver fouree in antiquity?
« Reply #5 on: March 13, 2022, 09:28:29 am »
What it really means is that it was worth the effort, (at the time), forging such things presumably at a profit. Unless it was part of a plan to undermine the currency. It's not what it is it's what it means. It's not that mine is smaller than yours. If similar size/weight coins at different places are plated forgeries then  they were valuable coins and circulated as such a lot. Do you find TEST MARKED tiny coins? Is that why you find fourrees of tiny coins cos it was a devil testing them cos you might destroy a real one and be double down on the deal?  Anyone an expert on tiny fourrees someone like to weigh in on this?

John
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Offline djmacdo

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Re: Smallest Silver fouree in antiquity?
« Reply #6 on: March 13, 2022, 03:53:44 pm »
Silver and gold was much more valuable in antiquity than in the modern world--at least until recently.  Even a tiny fourree might make a resaonable profit for a forger, especially if he could make many of them quickly.

Offline cicerokid

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Re: Smallest Silver fouree in antiquity?
« Reply #7 on: March 14, 2022, 04:43:14 am »
The add on is that bronze coinage started very quickly. Thus tiny fourrees were for the smaller purchases but not that small. Maybe they were official attempt to tamp down the value of circulating currency....an official fouree is much like a purely bronze coin..but not quite!
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Offline djmacdo

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Re: Smallest Silver fouree in antiquity?
« Reply #8 on: March 14, 2022, 08:43:33 am »
I cannot remember in which of Aristophanes' comedies the scene occurs, but in it a fellow is carrying a number of very small silver pieces in his mouth, evidently a common practice, when he is startled and swallows them.  You can imagine the rest of the scene.

Offline cicerokid

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Re: Smallest Silver fouree in antiquity?
« Reply #9 on: March 14, 2022, 03:58:41 pm »
The Frogs I have somewhere read!  I don't know where the first bronze issues came from and when. How can I find out? This is the only discussion on fouree tiny coins.
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Offline Kevin D

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Re: Smallest Silver fouree in antiquity?
« Reply #10 on: March 14, 2022, 06:15:11 pm »
Some of the smallest electrum coins were a day's wage or more in their time, so it figures that it was profitable to counterfeit them from the beginning.

https://coinweek.com/ancient-coins/ancient-chinese-coins-and-the-worlds-oldest-mint/

The above link is to an article on the discovery of a 2,600 year old Chinese mint and the bronze 'coins' it produced. This might bring up the subject of what denotes a coin and what does not. In any event, it's an interesting read.

The most difficult part of making a metallic coin might be the technology needed to extract metal from oar (alluvial deposits excepted). That technology was discovered and developed in many parts of the world long before the advent of coinage.


Offline Virgil H

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Re: Smallest Silver fouree in antiquity?
« Reply #11 on: March 14, 2022, 09:15:13 pm »
I am always amazed when I read that people carried coins in their mouths. I wouldn't last a day doing that without swallowing them or choking. Maybe they did it like tobacco chewers. I am curious, if anyone knows, how do we know this was a common practice. I know that coins were put in people's mouths to pay for Charon's fee, but at this point, they are already dead. Anyway, I have always considered this a very peculiar way to carry coins. It is not as if small bags did not exist. If I lived back then, I often think I might have been able to make a killing by inventing coin purses. LOL.

Virgil

Offline cicerokid

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Re: Smallest Silver fouree in antiquity?
« Reply #12 on: March 15, 2022, 04:17:36 am »
I think it's meant to be part of an elaborate ancient Greek joke and a comment on the times, satire-like
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Offline Ron C2

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Re: Smallest Silver fouree in antiquity?
« Reply #13 on: March 15, 2022, 09:07:09 am »
Come to think 9f it, where would you put your coin purse when togate?
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Offline cicerokid

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Re: Smallest Silver fouree in antiquity?
« Reply #14 on: March 16, 2022, 10:02:22 am »
Maybe it wasn't the be seen carrying cash so it was done by a slave instead or a young poor boy.

as a Cappadocian fanatique  have you read this,

The Aşvan Hoard: Coins of Two Cappadocian Monarchs
Authors(s): Anthony McNicoll
Source: Anatolian Studies, Vol. 23, Aşvan 1968-1972: An Interim Report (1973), pp. 181-186
Published by: British Institute at Ankara
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/364253

Cappadocian Dynastic Rearrangements on the Eve of the First Mithridatic War
Authors(s): Sviatoslav Dmitriev
Source: Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte, Bd. 55, H. 3 (2006), pp. 285-297
Published by: Franz Steiner Verlag
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/443681

THE CAPPADOCIAN EXPEDITION OF NICOMEDES III EUERGETES, KING OF BITHYNIA
Authors(s): Dennis G. Glew
Source: Museum Notes (American Numismatic Society), Vol. 32 (1987), pp. 23-55
Published by: American Numismatic Society
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/43573624

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Offline Ron C2

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Re: Smallest Silver fouree in antiquity?
« Reply #15 on: March 16, 2022, 08:57:41 pm »
I haven't read those yet, but I will - thanks!
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