How did people in ancient times deal with wear & tear of coins?

MKUltra24

Sorry for not being very precise in the title of this post but I wasn’t sure how to phrase it to make sense and fit.

Here is what I am asking:

Let’s say I’m an Ancient Roman living in 120 AD under the reign of Emperor Trajan.

I go to a merchant of goods and he tells me that X amount of wine, bread, etc costs
“1 denarius good sir!”

I look into my money pouch and pull out some coins.

I have some denarii from the reign of Trajan and Nerva as well as a few denarii from the reign of Augustus.

The denarii from the reign of Augustus would be heavier due to later debasement while the other coins would weigh vastly different amounts based on wear and tear.

So basically the denarius I pay the merchant with could be between 3.9 grams of 98%+ silver at best or as low as 2.9 grams of 83.5% silver (debasement).

Obviously according to Gresham’s Law the smart thing would be to pay the merchant with the lightest coin and lowest silver content.

But that leads to the question: How did merchants account for that?

If they accept any legitimate denarius given to them they would end up receiving much less silver than they wanted when they gave the price of “one denarius good sir!”.

I imagine for large transactions (like a slave) they could weigh the coins and say “I want X weight of silver and you can choose any denarii you want as long as it adds up.”

But it doesn’t seem like that would work very well for smaller transactions.

Sapyx

It would be unlikely that you'd have a denarius or two of Augustus just lying around, over 100 years later. The Roman government systematically recycled old coinage, re-melting it and issuing it to the new fineness standard. This was especially true following regime change when a despised emperor met his untimely demise; all the ex-emperor's old coins would be withdrawn, remelted and reissued. By 120 AD, all of Augustus' surviving coins would have been lost and buried in the ground, with (it is speculated) perhaps a few surviving examples in the imperial mint's coin collection.

That being said, there was a general awareness, especially among merchants, that "older silver was better". Gresham may not have been born yet, but the ancients were well aware of the principle behind his Law. Their goods would be priced on the assumption that the denarius they got from you would be the newest, smallest, roughest, most heavily clipped denarius in your purse. If you didn't have such a coin and only had good-quality coins, well, all the better for the merchant. They would gratefully accept any older denarius you offered them in exchange.

Of course, just like in more modern times, if a coin was too badly worn, damaged or clipped, a merchant was well within his rights to refuse to accept it, or only accept it at a discount. How much of a discount would be up for debate. Haggling about such things was all just part of life back then.

You are correct when you imagine large transactions were done by weight, rather than counting. As a clear indicator of this: if you've ever tried to handle a whole bunch of denarii, you would have noticed that their high-relief design and odd shape means they aren't designed to be easily stackable. Stackable (and therefore easily countable) coins weren't invented until the Late Roman period.

MKUltra24

@Sapyx said:
It would be unlikely that you'd have a denarius or two of Augustus just lying around, over 100 years later. The Roman government systematically recycled old coinage, re-melting it and issuing it to the new fineness standard. This was especially true following regime change when a despised emperor met his untimely demise; all the ex-emperor's old coins would be withdrawn, remelted and reissued. By 120 AD, all of Augustus' surviving coins would have been lost and buried in the ground, with (it is speculated) perhaps a few surviving examples in the imperial mint's coin collection.

That being said, there was a general awareness, especially among merchants, that "older silver was better". Gresham may not have been born yet, but the ancients were well aware of the principle behind his Law. Their goods would be priced on the assumption that the denarius they got from you would be the newest, smallest, roughest, most heavily clipped denarius in your purse. If you didn't have such a coin and only had good-quality coins, well, all the better for the merchant. They would gratefully accept any older denarius you offered them in exchange.

Of course, just like in more modern times, if a coin was too badly worn, damaged or clipped, a merchant was well within his rights to refuse to accept it, or only accept it at a discount. How much of a discount would be up for debate. Haggling about such things was all just part of life back then.

You are correct when you imagine large transactions were done by weight, rather than counting. As a clear indicator of this: if you've ever tried to handle a whole bunch of denarii, you would have noticed that their high-relief design and odd shape means they aren't designed to be easily stackable. Stackable (and therefore easily countable) coins weren't invented until the Late Roman period.

That makes sense. Thanks for answering!

Does that mean technically someone could pay in bullion?

Like if a denarius was on average 4 grams and someone was selling say a slave for 1,000 denarii 4g x 1000 = 4 kg so could someone take in like 4x 1kg silver bars (or some combination adding up to 4kg) and use that to pay?

I know kilograms weren’t used by the Romans but I’m just using them to make my point as any weight could be used instead.

I’m just really curious about how private bullion was used.

I mean there are tons of Roman artifacts made of gold/silver so obviously bullion had a place in society.

I also read that even centuries after the fall of Rome coins were actually melted down and used as bullion by goldsmiths & silversmiths because they had a known weight & purity so customers wouldn’t have to worry about their product being made with lower purity precious metals than they paid for (like a goldsmith using 18k gold when the customer paid for 20k gold).

Or would the bullion have to be sold to a goldsmith/silversmith and nothing but coinage was accepted for payments?

Sapyx

"Raw bullion" basically didn't exist. Precious metal mines were owned by the state, and raw metal ore processed and turned into coin virtually straight away.

The only other form people might encounter precious metals is in the form of jewellery and worked metal items. The concept of a privately-produced ingot or bar of precious metal for use in trade basically didn't exist. Silver jewellery, dinnerware etc were for ostentatious display, not for wealth storage. If you wanted to stockpile your wealth in silver, then you stockpiled coins. People trusted coins, they didn't trust silver in other forms. Your scrap silver might be accepted in trade, if the seller knew you and trusted you and your source of silver, but it probably wouldn't.

Now, you might well ask, "If melting down coins was illegal and tradable bullion didn't exist, then where did the silversmiths get their raw silver from?". This seems to have been a trade secret, learnt as part of the silversmithing craft. Some presumably illicitly melted down the Emperor's coins. Others might have had friends among the moneychangers, who had the problem of profitably getting rid of unwanted foreign silver coins. Yet others might have relied on recycling old pieces of jewellery into newer, more fashionable items. In the above transaction example, where you offered scrap silver in exchange, the seller who refused to accept your scrap silver might tell you to go to the silversmith and sell your scrap silver to him, in effect exchanging your silver for coins.