What does it mean when...

[Fraggle Rock 0]

What does it mean when a coin has the edges serrated?

Why do people do this?

Who does it?

What does it do to the value of a coin?

Cheers,

Fraggle Rock

[Peter 615]

[Fraggle Rock 0]

Not sure what I mean? Check this out...

and the reverse...

Anyone got any ideas?

Cheers,

Fraggle

[Geordie582 18]

As the serrations are irregular, I'd suggest a manic teenager with a file!

[Fraggle Rock 0]

Thanks, for your reply.

There are many coins about that have this "Serratus" edge. Surely it's not all a case of unwitting vandals?

Is there any historical proof of this being done by the Romans?

Fraggle

[Geordie582 18]

No mention in my books. But another coin nut on the forum may come up with something!

[Gary D 76]

As the serrations are irregular, I'd suggest a manic teenager with a file!

Might be closer to the truth than you realise. I have an old penny somewhere that has been sharpened around the edge, I assume for chucking around at football matches. Perhap it was used for chucking around in the arena

[TomGoodheart 402]

There's a picture of another of these coins (Denarius serratus (Serratus meaning, well - serrated!!) ) of Antonius Balbus in the latest Spink Numismatic Circular so they were obvously issued like this and aren't subject to vandalism as might at first appear.

Beyond that, not my area I'm afraid - Sylvester???

[Geordie582 18]

Looking at the way the serrations are irregular and cut into the design, I still favour vandalism, but when - ah! that's a guessing game I can't enter!

[Fraggle Rock 0]

Thanks, guys.

I guess this is the question...

If you were looking to buy a Roman coin, and it had serrated edges such as this, what would you think?

Does it de-value the coin? If not from a financial point of view, what about collectability?

On another note, how about designing some posh smileys for this website designed to look like coins...? Second thoughts, forget that. lol

Cheers,

Fraggle

[TomGoodheart 402]

The values of serrated coins in the Circular aren't any lower than for non- serrated denarii. They therefore appear to form a valid variation of the 'normal' issues and the serrations certainly wouldn't put me off. In fact, given that they appear less frequently, I'd say they make for an interesting area for study.

I don't know if Chris or anyone else knows if these serrated coins only appear during certain periods - Republican maybe?

[TomGoodheart 402]

Aha! Courtesy of Doug Smith dougsmith.ancients.info/ gloss.html

"Some Roman Republican denarii were issued with the edges of the flans notched. This predecessor of modern reeded edges was cut individually on each coin and varies greatly in depth even on the same coin. Presumably to prove the coin was not plated, this did not work. Fourrees exist. "

Hope the link works.....

Edited April 8, 2006 by TomGoodheart

[Fraggle Rock 0]

Thanks for the research, Tom.

The link doesn't work, but I get the gist.

Just one question more, before I let you all go and talk about proper collectible coins, rather than all this Roman rubbish (!)...

When it says "Fourrees exist", what do they mean?

Cheers,

Fraggle

[Sylvester 15]

There's a picture of another of these coins (Denarius serratus (Serratus meaning, well - serrated!!) ) of Antonius Balbus in the latest Spink Numismatic Circular so they were obvously issued like this and aren't subject to vandalism as might at first appear.

Beyond that, not my area I'm afraid - Sylvester???

Not really my area either, this is a new one on me.

I only collect Romans haphazardly.

[Geordie582 18]

Aha! Courtesy of Doug Smith dougsmith.ancients.info/ gloss.html

"Some Roman Republican denarii were issued with the edges of the flans notched. This predecessor of modern reeded edges was cut individually on each coin and varies greatly in depth even on the same coin. Presumably to prove the coin was not plated, this did not work. Fourrees exist. "

Hope the link works.....

Thanks Tom. We can always learn something new on the forum!

[TomGoodheart 402]

When it says "Fourrees exist", what do they mean?

Another quote from Doug Smith -

" From the very beginning of precious metal coinage a certain number of coins were made with a precious metal 'skin' over a base metal core. These 'plated' or 'fourree' (also seen spelled with one 'r' or 'e') pieces were intended to look like their solid counterparts and circulated until the core broke through betraying their nasty little secret."

IE they are counterfeits, although he goes on to say he thinks some coins were made by the mint as fourrees (!)

[Fraggle Rock 0]

Fourrees... hmm interesting.

So when you say they are counterfeit, do you mean that in terms of counterfeit when issued, and are they worth less now as a collectable item then the original article?

Frag

[TomGoodheart 402]

Yes - contemporary (ie produced at the time) counterfeits produced to trick people into accepting a coin worth less than face value (since in those days the value was related to the precious metal content).

And no - contemporary counterfeits aren't always worth less - they are after all interesting from a historical point of view. Some people collect them (I have a small collection of counterfeit Charles I shillings to accompany my real ones) and so, as with any 'collectable', value will depend on how common things are and how many people want them. A specialist collector might pay well for a scarce counterfeit for all I know.

If you do a search (I use Altavista, but Google seems popular) for 'fourree', 'denarii' etc you may well find more if you're keen (!) (Doug Smith had a few pics etc on the site I found for example and goes into some detail about how fourrees were produced, which incidentally was still a method used for producing counterfeits at least up to the 17th century))