I see your point. Limesfalsa is not a well chosen term anyway. They were probably not meant to deceive but money of necessity and I'm not sure if they are really necessarily from the borders of the empire.
Stefan
Yes, I agree. I debated for some time, with a fellow enthusiast, calling well-made imitations of
Roman Republican bronzes "locally-made small change", indicating a semi-official nature. Sometimes, the origin of well-made imitations is known (e.g. the bronzes produced in Southern
Spain, or the Campanian
types recorded by
Stannard), and you can't escape the conclusion that they were probably officially sanctioned, or at least not officially forbidden. Sometimes they may have been produced at a regular
mint, copying older
types in lighter
weight, but intended to be issued in
military pay or by local magistrates. "Local
Spanish small change issue" or "local Campanian small change issue" probably suits. "
Money of necessity" is also a useful term, suggesting
money that was needed, but not supplied by government. The same logic might apply to the imitations of Claudian
asses in
England, or the imitations of
Dupondii of Caesar/Octavian in
Gaul, or to the light-weight overstrikes, in reasonable
style, struck over captured Carthaginian coins during the second Punic war. The struggle is to find words that indicates these coins may not have been produced with deceptive intent (i.e. are not really
forgeries) but were
money of necessity, intended to boost necessary small change supply, in a manner that would support the local economy and not damage the government (assuming such coins would not be accepted as tax revenues). But not all imitations are
money of necessity - we need to clearly distinguish ancient
forgeries (intended to deceive, such as
plated coins), or
barbaric lightweight issues that probably never circulated anywhere near a
Roman military town. I think this struggle to find plain words to describe something that we don't really understand, is a worthwhile one. It is
a struggle for meaning, and that is a noble cause, best not disguised by jargon.