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Author Topic: Billon  (Read 7265 times)

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Offline esnible

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Billon
« on: September 23, 2009, 02:29:17 pm »
Many ancient coins were made out of billon, a mixture of mostly copper with a lot of silver added.

What good was billon?  With silver and gold coins I understand that if the minting authority failed jewelers could melt them down and use the metal to make jewelry.  I was wondering what happened when a billon coin was melted.

Could ancient metalsmiths get pure silver back out easily?  Or was does billon have a distinctive look and was desired for billon jewelry?

The USA made half dollars during 1965-1970 by sandwiching a billon center between silver surfaces.  I remember seeing these circulating in the early 1970s, the line of billon on the rim didn't look particularly pretty or special.

Offline Jochen

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Re: Billon
« Reply #1 on: September 23, 2009, 03:01:17 pm »
Hi!

We know from coins with the legend LVGPS  (Siliqua of Eugenius) where the abbreviation PS is taken for 'pusulatus', meaning pure silver.  Melville Jones writes: When refined by the process of cupellation this metal presented a pustular appearance. The abbreviations PS, PST, PV and PVS which appear on some Roman ingots indicate that they are of refined silver.

So we see that the Romans have had the technology to get pure silver back out.

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Offline quisquam

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Re: Billon
« Reply #2 on: September 23, 2009, 03:36:33 pm »
And in the Codex Theodosianus there is an edict that forbade the extraction of silver from the 'pecuniae maiorinae' (CTh 9.21.6), which shows that it was done even when the silver content was very low. It surely was possible, but if it was possible or practicable for a simple metalsmith I don't know.

Stefan

Offline Reid Goldsborough

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Re: Billon
« Reply #3 on: September 24, 2009, 07:10:51 pm »
Many ancient coins were made out of billon, a mixture of mostly copper with a lot of silver added.

This is semantics again, but it's interesting, and it reflects just what it is that we're looking at when we're looking at our coins.

Not everyone feels that billon is a copper alloy with a lot of silver.

Fourth century Roman bronze coins are sometimes referred to a billon coins -- in David Vagi's Coinage and History of the Roman Empire, among other places -- because they were made with a thin silver wash despite their overall silver content being something like 3 percent.

My dictionary defines billon as an alloy of silver (or gold) with a greater percentage of base metal such as copper, without indicating a specific percentage.

On the other hand, Encyclopedia Britannica (XI edition) defines billon as being "about one-fifth silver to four-fifths copper."

But the Royal Mint glossary defines billon as a silver alloy containing less than 50 percent silver without specifying a minimum silver content. Similarly, Tony Clayton at Metals Used in Coins and Medals (http://www.ukcoinpics.co.uk/metal.html) defines billion as a silver alloy with more than half copper.

I think of billon the same way I think of electrum: An alloy comprised of 20 percent or more silver. An upper limit of 50 percent seems about right before electrum becomes gold and billon becomes silver.
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nemo

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Re: Billon
« Reply #4 on: September 24, 2009, 07:27:03 pm »
I think of billon the same way I think of electrum: An alloy comprised of 20 percent or more silver. An upper limit of 50 percent seems about right before electrum becomes gold and billon becomes silver.

Electrum is a naturally occurring mineral. It's proportions are determined by nature. Billon is a man-made alloy. In numismatic parlance, billon simply means less than 50% silver, be it 49% or 3%.

Offline Reid Goldsborough

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Re: Billon
« Reply #5 on: September 24, 2009, 09:07:34 pm »
Electrum is a naturally occurring mineral. It's proportions are determined by nature. Billon is a man-made alloy. In numismatic parlance, billon simply means less than 50% silver, be it 49% or 3%.

That's true, but only in part. Electrum does occur naturally. But the part you're ignoring or unaware of is that electrum can also be a gold-silver alloy whose proportions are controlled by humans, and it often was. Perhaps the most famous example is what arguably are the first coins, the electrum lion head electrum coins from Lydia, in which the naturally occurring electrum was further debased with varying amounts of added silver and copper to bring the gold content down to a fairly uniform percentage, around 54 percent more or less.

Also, as pointed out, there doesn't seem to be a universally recognized definition, in numismatics or elsewhere, for billon. Using your definition, any bronze coin with less than 50 percent silver, even a trace amount, would be made of billon.
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nemo

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Re: Billon
« Reply #6 on: September 24, 2009, 09:23:15 pm »
Using your definition, any bronze coin with less than 50 percent silver, even a trace amount, would be made of billon.

I'm not sure about a "trace", but with silver in any controlled amount, even in single digit percentages, yes, that is the accepted numismatic definition.

Offline Reid Goldsborough

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Re: Billon
« Reply #7 on: September 24, 2009, 11:06:26 pm »
[Somebody is changing my posts here, editing my words. And another poster is changing his posts AFTER I respond to them, addressing his points, which makes my responses sound like I'm talking to a ghost or something. So I'm going to change the post of mine that follows because it makes no sense now.]

These silver-washed coins were just bronzes made to appear to be of higher bullion content than they were. Official foolery, or attempts at it, the last stage in a long Roman Imperial tradition. This relates to the original poster's question. Billon as debased silver still more or less looks like silver until the silver content gets too low, then tricks such as surface enrichment and silver washing have to be used. Love those Romans:)

Regarding electrum, a lot of people make the same mistake here too, thinking that all electrum is naturally occurring. Another example of practices or misconceptions just getting passed down.
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Offline PeterD

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Re: Billon
« Reply #8 on: September 25, 2009, 11:28:21 am »
Quote
no universally agreed upon definitions
Correct. Dictionaries and glossaries and the like have to follow usage, not the other way round.
Putting the word "Billon" into [REMOVED BY ADMIN] search brings up 9274 entries. Needless to say I didn't look at them all. However, most of them seem to be called billon because of their (as one dealer put it) "subdued silvery appearance". In other words, when it is obvious that they contain silver but are not pure silver either.
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Offline Stkp

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Re: Billon
« Reply #9 on: September 25, 2009, 02:21:56 pm »
These silver-washed coins were just bronzes made to appear to be of higher bullion content than they were. Official foolery, or attempts at it, the last stage in a long Roman Imperial tradition. This relates to the original poster's question. Billon as debased silver still more or less looks like silver until the silver content gets too low, then tricks such as surface enrichment and silver washing have to be used. Love those Romans:)

I wonder whether the silver-washing of these bronze coins was any more an attempt at "official foolery" or a "trick[ ]" than is the practice of the United States government post-1964 to issue clad dimes and quarters that continue to look like the silver coins issued prior to that year.  Perhaps it was done not to fool the public (which surely knew better) but to preserve the familiar look of the coinage?

Offline Reid Goldsborough

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Re: Billon
« Reply #10 on: September 25, 2009, 02:56:51 pm »
I wonder whether the silver-washing of these bronze coins was any more an attempt at "official foolery" or a "trick[ ]" than is the practice of the United States government post-1964 to issue clad dimes and quarters that continue to look like the silver coins issued prior to that year.  Perhaps it was done not to fool the public (which surely knew better) but to preserve the familiar look of the coinage?

With U.S. clad coinage, you can plainly see the layers at the edge, which was done deliberately. Further, it was, mostly, an abrupt change, from good silver (.900) to base metal (copper-nickel), Kennedy halves being the exception. With Roman Imperial silver, the debasement was gradual and progressive.

Still, you raise a good question. I don't know if we know how widely known the debasement was at the time, though no doubt others here have looked into this far more than I have. Debased silver, or billon, looks silvery, but there are of course ways, then as now, to tell good silver from debased silver.

The Romans also had a long history with bronze/copper coins. The silver-washed bronzes were the end stage of the Romans' silver debasement. They could have just skipped the silver wash, and the pretense, and these coins would have been accepted as bronzes, as bronzes were later.
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Offline Reid Goldsborough

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Re: Billon
« Reply #11 on: September 25, 2009, 03:21:39 pm »
I'm always fascinated with the interplay between tradition and facts, between common knowledge and truth. Just because people widely believe in something doesn't make it a reality, though the way I approach this is that widespread belief does lend support and warrant more careful examination.

Still, there are many widely held misconceptions in ancient numismatics, as elsewhere. Hans Christian Andersen's parable about the emperor wearing no clothes illustrates a universal truth about falsity.

I'm still fairly new to Roman numismatics, previously focusing heavily on Greek coins. But some of the Roman denominational names, from what I've been able to gather, are just modern fictions, invented by modern numismatists. I'm happy to be corrected here, but I believe that "nummus" and "follis" are two such modern ... coinages.

The follis, I believe, was the name the Romans used for a bag of small bronze coins and the Byzantines later used for the name of a large bronze coin. But calling the coins of Diocletian and later Romans a follis is just make believe.

Same with the nummus. Just a made-up denominational name, with the Romans themselves using the word "nummus" for "coin."
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Offline wandigeaux (1940 - 2010)

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Re: Billon
« Reply #12 on: September 25, 2009, 07:55:37 pm »
"nummus" as the designation of a denomination (the smallest) was certainly in use, at least among the Vandals and, perhaps, Ostrogoths, in the 6th century, as the legend NLXII (etc.) on Vandalic coins attests, and, indirectly, the denominational mark XL on Gothic issues, and M on Eastern Roman as well.  George S.
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Offline Reid Goldsborough

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Re: Billon
« Reply #13 on: September 25, 2009, 08:59:51 pm »
The name "follis" was used later as well, as I said. But were these terms used by the Romans as denominational names for their coins in the same way that "denarius" was used? That's the issue. Or were these terms coined by modern numismatists for Roman coins by extrapolating backward in time? I've read that the latter occurred but again don't know how reliable this is. What argues in favor of this is that "follis" and "nummus" are used today for the same coin types.
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Offline commodus

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Re: Billon
« Reply #14 on: September 25, 2009, 09:51:39 pm »
The USA made half dollars during 1965-1970 by sandwiching a billon center between silver surfaces.  I remember seeing these circulating in the early 1970s, the line of billon on the rim didn't look particularly pretty or special.

Actually, the half dollars you speak of did not have billon cores, but cores of pure copper with neither silver nor base metal in the mix. The presently circulating halves, those struck since 1970 (and, beginning in 1965, dimes and quarters also), have a copper core sandwiched between outer layers of copper-nickel.
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Offline cliff_marsland

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Re: Billon
« Reply #15 on: September 25, 2009, 10:26:37 pm »
What about potin?  I refer to the late Alexandrian Tetradrachms.  Where does billon end and potin begin?  My understanding is that potin is AE with almost no silver.  Were the late Tets silvered?

Offline Reid Goldsborough

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Re: Billon
« Reply #16 on: September 25, 2009, 11:03:47 pm »
Quote from: commodus on September 25, 2009, 09:51:39 pm
Actually, the half dollars you speak of did not have billon cores, but cores of pure copper with neither silver nor base metal in the mix.

That's not true. Circulating Kennedy halves from 1965 to 1970, the transitional issues I was speaking of, did in fact have billon cores, consisting of .209 silver and .791 copper, with outter layers of .800 silver and .200 copper. This was a transition between the .900 silver Kennedys from 1964 and earlier and the 1971 and later issues that were entirely base metal (copper-nickel).

The circulating Washington quarters and Roosevelt dimes didn't undergo such a transition, instead going straight from .900 silver to all base metal.
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Offline commodus

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Re: Billon
« Reply #17 on: September 27, 2009, 02:18:12 am »
Well, okay.  This is interesting and I don't doubt it, actually. I am not a collector of US coins, though all my references on the subject say they had a copper core (or merely that they were 40% silver, as opposed to the 1964 90% silver version). The post 1970 halves, like all post-1964 dimes and quarters, as well as dollars until the debut of the so-called "golden dollars," clearly had/have copper cores sandwiched between copper nickel outer shells. With the halves from 1965-70 the edge is not so clear a visual indicator of the composition of the interior.

Boring coins in any case.
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Offline Jaimelai

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Re: Billon
« Reply #18 on: September 27, 2009, 02:25:07 am »
Cliff - I was about to ask the same question  :)  I recently purchased this Alexandrian Tetradrachm described as "potin" yet other references I've found describe similar coins as "billon".  I thought the difference was that billion was bronze with some silver and potin was bronze with some tin and lead.  How does one tell the difference?


Offline Danny S. Jones

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Re: Billon
« Reply #19 on: September 27, 2009, 04:51:12 am »
Some early imperial coins were made of billon, which at the time could be described as severely debased silver. One particular coin of note that is quite common would be the tetradrachm of Roman provincial Egypt, (i.e. Nero tets minted in Alexandria). It was still silver in color, though noticeably different than the purer quality silver coins. As time progressed, the amount if silver in "billon" regressed, until the amount was virtually unnoticeable.

I personally categorize coins which are listed as having very small or trace amounts of silver as being AE rather than billion, because they are virtually indistinguishable, at least to the naked eye. I'm sure there were political or economic motives to the addition of the gratuitous amount of silver to Roman coinage, and to the study of numismatic metallurgy it may be an important matter. 

In my opinion, the degree of the debasement of late Roman imperial "billon" coins (which are almost identical in content as bronze coinage) was such that it makes little difference as to the nomenclature.

Danny

Offline moonmoth

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Re: Billon
« Reply #20 on: September 27, 2009, 06:24:07 am »
Potin is an alloy of copper, tin and lead; so basically, bronze with added lead.  Some people reserve the term "potin" for Gallic coins, but it can also be used for the late Alexandrian tetradrachms (and some other Alexandrian coins) that have a fair proportion of lead in their mix. The lead content gives these coins a soapy feel; they generally have low definition and detail; and they can develop a distinctive red patina.

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Offline Reid Goldsborough

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Re: Billon
« Reply #21 on: September 27, 2009, 12:54:47 pm »
I personally categorize coins which are listed as having very small or trace amounts of silver as being AE rather than billion, because they are virtually indistinguishable, at least to the naked eye.

A poster here previously suggested I was the only person who regarded these silver-washed late Roman bronzes as bronzes instead of billon. Glad to hear that someone else feels this way. <g>

When I responded to this dealer by pointing to a statement about Roman coins in the Encyclopedia Britannica (XI edition), he changed his previous post, which made my response to him sound nonsensical. So I then had to change my post, removing the Encyclopedia Britannica quote. So, here it is: "When the base silver coins are replaced by copper washed with silver the term billon becomes inappropriate." Many others, of course, describe these coins as bronze coins rather than as billon coins.

There's lots of interesting misuses of numismatic terms regarding metals and alloys. Along with some people feeling that all electrum is naturally occurring and bronze coins with virtually no silver in them are billon, the term potin is misused or confused too. As Jaimelai pointed out, billon and potin aren't synonymous. Some use these terms this way, but I believe this is mistaken or at best confusing.

Tony Clayton, I believe, got this right at his page. He defines potin as "an ancient alloy of copper, zinc, lead and tin... Unlike billon, it normally contains no silver." He then says, however, that "some alloys containing silver have also been called potin, such as some from Egypt in the 1st to 3rd century A.D.," but he doesn't say explicitly that this is a misuse, that these coins are better referred to as billon coins, not potin coins. I believe that billon is the better term for these coins, billon being debased silver, with silver being the more important variable than lead.

Then there are the "golden" dollars (golden colored, maybe). And the silver-plated base metal replicas of Morgan dollars that are advertised without using the words "plated" or "replica," so that some people feel they're solid-silver authentic coins. The list goes on, or could.
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Offline Danny S. Jones

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Re: Billon
« Reply #22 on: September 08, 2010, 11:41:37 am »
These definitions are lifted verbatim from A DICTIONARY OF NUMISMATIC NAMES: THEIR OFFICIAL AND POPULAR DESIGNATIONS, by Albert R. Frey
Published by the American Numismatic Society in 1917.

It's a wonderful resource, and I've listed it for download in the Library of Ancient Coinage on Numiswiki.

Billon. A base metal usually obtained by mixing silver and copper. The designation is now generally applied to any coin ostensibly called silver, but containing in reality more than fifty percent of copper. If the proportion of copper is more than seventy-five per cent, the composition is called black billon, argentum nigrum, or moneta argentosa. Lastly, if the coin is of copper, and is only thinly washed with silver, as in the case of some of the Scheidemiinzen (q.v.) it is called Weisskupfer, i.e., white copper. The Encyclopedia Britannica in an early edition of 1797 states that gold under twelve carats fine is called billon of gold. Ruding (i. 210) mentions the Turonenses nigri, that is, the black money of Tours, which was brought to England in the fourteenth century and prohibited.

Potin. A brittle base metal; an alloy of lead, copper, tin, zinc, and twenty percent of silver. This composition occurs in the Denarii of Valerianus, Gallienus, etc., and the large series of base Tetradrachms struck at Alexandria in Egvpt from the first to the third century A.D. The term is usually applied to ancient coins, but the mixture is of the character of Billon (q.v.).


Common usage dictates that any composition containing silver would better be termed billion.

Regards,
Danny Jones

Offline Reid Goldsborough

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Re: Billon
« Reply #23 on: September 08, 2010, 12:11:43 pm »
Language usage changes over time. The above was written nearly a century ago. I don't know that today many would feel that potin needs to contain 20 percent silver. I've never seen the term "black billon" used, or some of the the other terms that this author, publishing in 1917, also says are used to designate alloys. I'd agree with you, and disagree with this author, that an alloy made of debased silver is better termed billion than potin. It's all semantics, but naming things can help in understanding them.
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