Roman Fourre serrati denarius. Extremely rare type of coin.Lot 218

Description: Roman denarius of Emperor Trajan. Extremely rare type of denarius Fourre serrati denarius Extremely rare Fourree serrati coin, Very fine condition. Diameter 20 mm, weight 3.01 gm. Very rare bust type. Authenticity is guaranteed. Fourree serrati denarius. Extremely rare type of coin. Very hard to find and acquire! Buy with confidence! Certificate of Authenticity included Afourreis acoin, most often an ancient counterfeit, that is made from a base metal core that has been plated with a precious metal to look like its solid metal counterpart. The term is normally applied to ancient silver-plated coins such as theRomandenariusandGreek drachma, but the term is also applied to other plated coin. Cicero mentions thatM. Marius Gratidianus, apraetorduring the 80s BC, was widely praised for developing tests to detect false coins, and removing them from circulation. Gratidianus was killed underSulla, who introduced his own anti-forgery law (lex Cornelia de falsis), that reintroduced serrated edges on precious metal coins, an anticounterfeiting measure that had been tried earlier. Serrated denarii, orserrati, which featured about 20 notched chisel marks on the edge of the coin, were produced to demonstrate the integrity of the coin. This effort was in vain, as examples offourre serratiattest. Production of fourres began almost as early as the production of the first coins in Asia Minor in the 7th century BC. These coins were produced by people wishing to profit by producing a counterfeit containing less precious metal content than its purported face value. The most common method for producing a fourre was to take a flan of copper, wrap it with silver foil, heat it, and strike it with thedies. If the coin was sufficiently heated and struck hard enough, a layer ofeutecticalloy (a mixture of 72% silver and 28% copper that has the lowest melting point of any mixture of these two metals) would be produced, fusing the layers together. Sometimes eutectic was sprinkled between the layers to increase the bond. Exposure of the deception was often due to wear at the high points of the coin, or moisture trapped between the layers that caused the foil to bubble and then break as the core corroded. A later method for making fourres involved adding silver to the base metal coin after it had been struck. This method allowed even less silver to be used, which became more important in order to make counterfeiting profitable as the official coinage wasdebased. The exact method by which these coins were silvered is unclear, although possible methods include dipping the coin in molten silver, brushing the coins with molten silver, or dusting the coin with powdered silver and heating it until the silver melted. The easiest way to spot a fourre is by weight, since a fourre with a copper core would weigh noticeably less than a solid silver coin due to the lower density of copper. The opposite would be true for a fourre with a lead core. Another method to determine whether a coin was plated was listening to the sound produced by dropping the coin onto a hard surface since if the coin was solid silver it would have a distinctive ring. Although this was done by contemporary merchants, it is not recommended that this method be used on ancient coin since the coin could be damaged, especially since over time silver coins can become brittle, if the silver begins to recrystallize. The most obvious way to detect a plated coin would be if the base metal core was damaged or worn, revealing the base metal. There are often chisel or chop marks on ancient silver coins by merchants attempting to determine if a coin was solid. These "banker marks" are most common on Roman denarii of the 1st century BC and 1st century AD. During theCrisis of the Third Century, constant wars required a lot of coins to be produced, leading to heavy debasing of precious metal coinage. Theantoninianuswas eventually debased to the point where flans (blank metal disks) were produced with 5% silver or less, and pickled to dissolve the copper from the surface producing a spongy surface of almost pure silver. When these coins struck, the force of striking would produce a thin shiny layer of silver on the surface, which would quickly wear away. These "silvered" coins are not considered fourres, since they are not actually plated since the metal is actually a continuous layer and these coins were not created to deceive.

Price: 750 USD

Location: Federal Way, Washington

End Time: 2025-01-19T01:57:30.000Z

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