What are the purest silver and gold coins?

element159

I am curious about which coins have the highest purity silver and gold in them.
I don't care about NCLT, many of these of course are very high purity, I am interested in circulated coins.
Great Britain had sterling silver (0.925), this is better than US coinage (0.900). Similarly for gold, GB had 0.917 purity, also better than the US (0.900). Other GB colonies had similar purity to the GB coins, but did anybody ever issue anything more pure than that?

GDJMSP

The gold ducat produced by most European nations had a fineness of .986 from its inception in 1274 until the present day. Most of the gold coins of all nations during the medieval period were considered to be pure gold, but there is no fineness of record. It was not until after the medieval period that fineness began to drop.

As for silver, again some of the medieval coinages were considered to be pure silver, but it was not as common as it was with gold. It also tended to depend upon the denomination with silver. Larger coins would be pure or nearly so while smaller denominations had fineness levels down to 5%.

Sapyx

Governments generally avoided using absolutely pure silver and gold for circulation coins, because they are both rather soft metals; alloying them with copper makes them harder, and therefore they last longer in circulation.

But just flicking through the Krause catalogues (and reading an old article on the topic in my coin club's magazine), I found a few others that are above .900 fine, not yet mentioned.

The silver phoenix of Greece, only issued in 1828, was .943 fine. But good luck finding one - they're not cheap.
This one sold for $2500.

The silver coins of British India were .917 fine, as were the coins of Portuguese India; the native Indian states also aimed for this standard.

Some Israeli 5 lirot and 10 lirot coins from the 1950's and 1960's were .935 fine. But I'm pretty sure these weren't intended for circulation.

The old Dutch (Netherlands) silver standard, from the mid-1800's up to WWI, was .945 fine for the half, 1 and 2½ gulden. I think this was the highest circulating silver content.

element159

Thanks. The main book I have is the 20th century Krause, but somehow I missed the Netherlands 0.945. Something else to collect now! I had heard vague things about early British pennies being "pure" silver but I did not have reliable info.
This link (somebody else on the board posted it) link says that the Spanish 8 reales was 0.9305 silver, so that is pretty good too, and historically interesting also.

I'll have to figure out which ducats are bullion NCLT (which I don't care about) and which ones actually circulated. That is something else interesting that I didn't know about.

Sapyx

Many ancient silver coins had much higher fineness than modern coins. Early Greek coins were as pure as the technology of the day was capable of producing - typically between 96% and 99% pure silver. The Roman silver denarius, with a few exceptions during times of civil unrest, was pretty consistently 96% fine from the time of it's inception in 211 BC right through to the reign of Nero (about 60 AD).

ASUtodd

I was told, but have never been able to verify this other than seeing it on a website (I'm looking for it as we speak), but one of the purest silver coins ever made was the 1949 50 and 100 Czechoslovakia Silver Koruns honoring Stalin. Several coin dealers told me that these are such pure silver that most jewelers melted these for jewelry. Again, I have never been able to verify this but I did see it also on a website... As soon as I find it I will post it.

Swampboy

<< <i>Many ancient silver coins had much higher fineness than modern coins. Early Greek coins were as pure as the technology of the day was capable of producing - typically between 96% and 99% pure silver. The Roman silver denarius, with a few exceptions during times of civil unrest, was pretty consistently 96% fine from the time of it's inception in 211 BC right through to the reign of Nero (about 60 AD). >>




Very interesting.
Sapyx would you know how low the purity of the Roman silver denarius became in subsequent centuries as the currency was debased?

element159

<< <i>I was told, but have never been able to verify this, but one of the purest silver coins ever made was the 1949 50 and 100 Czechoslovakia Silver Koruns honoring Stalin. Several coin dealers told me that these are such pure silver that most jewelers melted these for jewelry. >>


My Krause lists these as 0.500 silver.

ASUtodd

I went back and looked and mine says that also. I wish I could remember who told me this and where I read it... I wasn't saying it was true... I was actually someone on here was the one that told me so they could verify it. Thanks !
Todd

Sapyx

<< <i>Sapyx would you know how low the purity of the Roman silver denarius became in subsequent centuries as the currency was debased? >>


In the end, it went all the way down to zero - by the time of Diocletian's reforms of the currency around 298 which eliminated the denarius, it had shrunk to a tiny bronze coin which may (or may not) have had a trace of silver in it.

I wrote a brief article on the topic in my coin club magazine a couple of years ago. I made a graph, to illustrate the debasement of the denarius from 50 AD to 250 AD:

The sharp drop at 60 AD was Nero's debasement. Domitian attempted to undo the damage during his reign in the late 90's, but it could not be sustained for long. Rome's "Golden Age" saw only a slight decline in fineness, but once the rot set in and civil wars and barbarian raids became the norm, the denarius went into a death-spiral of debasement and inflation. By the time of the reign of Valerian in the 250's, silver had almost disappeared from the "silver" coinage (though coins from this period still normally look "silvery").

After Valerian was captured by the Persians in 259 AD, and the resultant civil wars which tore the empire apart, silver could only be found in trace amounts, and the coins take a distinct turn for the worse, appearance-wise. The antoninanii and denarii of Aurelian from the 270's AD were struck from 20:1 copper:silver - as denoted by the letters XXI which appear on them. This official fineness of .048 was actually an improvement on the almost pure copper coins produced by Aurelian's immediate predecessors.

element159

That is an interesting chart, Sapyx. Do you have that data as a table, by any chance?
I find this stuff very interesting. I also collect pure elements (metals), and coins of (nearly) pure metal made into official money makes them interesting samples, especially considering the interesting history behind the older coins. It is mysterious and interesting, I like it, and want to know more!

Sapyx

Alas, I don't seem to have kept the raw data I used to make that graph. I derived it from a similar graph depicted in the book "Coinage in the Roman World" by Andrew Burnett, which is a book full of fascinating trivia on the economic and social background of Roman coinage.

If you're into numismatic items made from different elements, I assume you already know about this site that sells little cent-sized medals made of pure elements. Of course, you might consider buying elements for your collection from there to be "cheating", since they've done all the hard work for you.

element159

I have heard about Dave Hamric's element coins. I don't have any of them, although I have bought a number of other element samples from him.