Altamura: The fiat coinage discussion is kind of a tangent from my original question, but I started that tangent when musing about why the
moneyers and emperors would even bother producing Ants, declared to be two
denarii, containing as low as 5% silver and maybe less. To me, the Ant, from its inception, through its steady debasement, to ultimately being only silver washed bronze, is an historical example of the development of truly fiat currency.
I started this
thread, in
part, because I have embarked on an effort to collect at least one example of a “silver” coin issued by or under each emperor and empress in the imperial era, to the extent availability and my
budget will allow. Thus I was looking for the end point of that
collection, chronologically. Relatedly, I was wondering whether there is some understanding in the hobby about when a coin should be listed by the dealer or catalogued in a
collection as
billon instead of silver. For me, it’s an easy call that a silver washed bronze Ant is not a “silver” coin. But, while we know the
XXI Ants are metallurgically
billon, for purposes of our hobby are they accepted as RSCs ? In other words, even though we know many Ants are not made of an
alloy containing a high percentage, do we nevertheless accept them as a
RSC, and is there an accepted line of demarcation?
Ken