Numismatic and History Discussion Forums > History and Archeology

What happened to the big coins in the intervening years?

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basemetal:
I know I have a tendency to post questions for which there are no definitive answers.
But here's a mental exercise.
You have John Q Doe in AD 1357 (wow he escaped the plague-lucky guy) plowing away at his field.
He unearths a hoard of coins.  Some are quite large.  They are made of brass/bronze.  They have busts on them, but he does not recoginize any (he knows his priest, family, and the villagers, and the odd recurrent trader that comes 'round, but no one else really).
The coins of his time are much smaller.   
So, what does he do? Take 'em in to the local market and declare:
"By the saints sirrah, this one coin is in value worth more than the petty baubles I trade you once a week for leeks and sugar". 
Sorry, I'm giving him a bit more verbal skills than he may have had.  But you get the idea.
A large sestertius of say, Trajan found in a hoard would have been worth what in 1357?  A lot?  Not much? Would it have even been considered a coin?  Would he have been directed to the church smithy where they were trying to cast a bronze bell?  You get my drift here.  It must have happened.  What happened?
As the topic says...the stories behind the coins ;)

ecoli:
He will say:  One day, one man who people call basemetal will be metal detecting in a brand new world, thus to confuse him, I shall will the coins to my descendents so they can bring them to that new world, bury them at the beach for him find.


OR

Melt the metal.

Your choice...  ;D
 

curtislclay:
Capt. Smyth, A Cabinet of Roman Imperial Large-Brass Medals, 1834, p. 228, reports that in 1819 a workman on Malta discovered several amphoras full of third-cent. Roman sestertii, Sev. Alex. to Gallienus, an estimated 14-15,000 coins, mostly in excellent condition.  Unfortunately Smyth was away on a cruise, and nobody else was interested in the coins at the asking price of $100 for the whole hoard, so the finder sold them by weight to a brass-founder in Valetta, "who was actually melting them down, when a friend accidentally saw him, and thus rescued 12 or 13 hundred coins - all that were left - from destruction."

basemetal:
Thank you Mr. Curtis. 
That reminds me of the reverse situation with the Gun Metal coins of Charles II.
Coins into cannons.........then cannons into coins.


ecoli:
And the denizens that live at the water's edge in that far future land will observe this Basemetal  and will speak long  among themselves and be in concurrence that somewhere to the West lies a village that is missing it's idiot.

Bacchus:
Ahhh.. Basemetal..  That would be James II.  but it all happened a long time ago.. ;D

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