Hey
fellows: Thanks for your responses.
But from a Roman perspective, 50% was meaningless - in fact any specific percent was meaningless.
Well, I'm sure that at some point the
fineness of silver coins, or whether there was any silver content, became nearly meaningless as the
Roman economy, soldiers (importantly), and citizenry in general accepted the idea of fiat currency-- tariffed value, in
part at first and then later nearly entirely, uncoupled from intrinsic value. But I've read that many
Romans knew immediately that even the Ants of
Caracalla did not contain the silver of two
denarii and thus adjusted pricing accordingly and hoarded
denarii, particularly earlier issues.
At this point I am trying to collect RSCs of the imperial era, at least one of each emperor and empress I can find and afford. Initially, I thought ending that
collection where silver content dropped below 50% made sense. I don't think so now. That
standard is just too limiting and would exclude almost all ants issued after
Caracalla, when clearly many issues thereafter are accepted in the hobby as RSCs. The unclear distinction between a silver coin and a
billon coin remains unsettling to me, but it is what it is.
If you collect the anyoninianii of a specific emperor, the relative silver content should not be a factor in deciding what to acquire or what you should pay. Just my opinion
If I was collecting particular emperors and empresses I'd be of the same view. However, my focus now is on RSCs (and
still cleaning
LRBs), so silver content does matter to some extent, e.g. I'd buy an early issue
Gallienus rather than a later issue, other things being nearly equal. The most important factors to me are: condition which of course involves many things, coupled with
price; design-- I prefer designs that relate to fairly discrete events or periods- like the
Germanicus issues of
Gallienus and even the common
Constantinople commemoratives, especially the she-wolf
type; and size-- I like larger and heavier silver coins, and again, other things being nearly equal, would select a 4.6 gram ant over a 2.9 gram ant of the same
type every time.
Ken