ICG and Ancient Coin Grading: Need advice

The electrum of the early Greek coinage was a naturally occurring alloy
of gold and silver at 3/4 gold to 1/4 silver.

Later coins made of an artificially created gold/silver alloy were also
described as being "electrum". Billy


Reid Goldsborough wrote:

On 24 May 2005 12:52:31 -0700, "Anka" wrote:

When I first saw the coin advertised I thought it was electrum, but
since it was offered for only $100... sigh

*That* would be a deal. Early electrum in incredibly appealing. It's
an odd metal, playing a controversial role in very early coinage. It
appears that it resulted from gold being deliberately debased with
silver, but was it done openly or surreptitiously? If you know, I'd
appreciate it if you would tell me already.

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On Wed, 25 May 2005 13:24:24 GMT, "note.boy"
wrote:

The electrum of the early Greek coinage was a naturally occurring alloy
of gold and silver at 3/4 gold to 1/4 silver.

This is not true. The electrum in the earliest Lydian and Greek
coinage has a lower gold content than this, according to all of the
metallurgical studies I've seen in the literature. And it wasn't
standardized either, not at the percentage you say above or any other
percentage. Where did you read this stuff?

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Reid Goldsborough wrote:

On Wed, 25 May 2005 13:24:24 GMT, "note.boy"
wrote:

The electrum of the early Greek coinage was a naturally occurring alloy
of gold and silver at 3/4 gold to 1/4 silver.

This is not true. The electrum in the earliest Lydian and Greek
coinage has a lower gold content than this, according to all of the
metallurgical studies I've seen in the literature. And it wasn't
standardized either, not at the percentage you say above or any other
percentage. Where did you read this stuff?

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It is true otherwise I wouldn't have posted it, every mention of
"electrum" that I've seen in coin books describes it as a naturally
occurring alloy of gold and silver.

Four sources,

The Coin Atlas ISBN 1-85605-468-3

Teach Yourself Guide To Numismatics, bought when I was about 15 years
old. :-)

Money, A History ISBN 0-312-21212-7

Ancient Greece, A Handbook. ISBN 0-7509-1973-6

Electrum was mined from the sands of some rivers in western Turkey.

All of the above state that it's a naturally occurring alloy, three
don't mention the proportions but one gives the content as 3/4 gold to
1/4 silver.

Do you accept that it's a naturally occurring alloy as this is not clear
from your post.

Are you just discussing the metal mix? Billy

"note.boy" wrote:

Reid Goldsborough wrote:

On Wed, 25 May 2005 13:24:24 GMT, "note.boy"
wrote:

The electrum of the early Greek coinage was a naturally occurring alloy
of gold and silver at 3/4 gold to 1/4 silver.

This is not true. The electrum in the earliest Lydian and Greek
coinage has a lower gold content than this, according to all of the
metallurgical studies I've seen in the literature. And it wasn't
standardized either, not at the percentage you say above or any other
percentage. Where did you read this stuff?

--

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It is true otherwise I wouldn't have posted it, every mention of
"electrum" that I've seen in coin books describes it as a naturally
occurring alloy of gold and silver.

Four sources,

The Coin Atlas ISBN 1-85605-468-3

Teach Yourself Guide To Numismatics, bought when I was about 15 years
old. :-)

Money, A History ISBN 0-312-21212-7

Ancient Greece, A Handbook. ISBN 0-7509-1973-6

Electrum was mined from the sands of some rivers in western Turkey.

All of the above state that it's a naturally occurring alloy, three
don't mention the proportions but one gives the content as 3/4 gold to
1/4 silver.

Do you accept that it's a naturally occurring alloy as this is not clear
from your post.

Are you just discussing the metal mix? Billy

A quick google confirms the 75/25 mix. Billy

http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Electrum

Reid Goldsborough wrote:

On Wed, 25 May 2005 13:24:24 GMT, "note.boy"
wrote:


The electrum of the early Greek coinage was a naturally occurring alloy
of gold and silver at 3/4 gold to 1/4 silver.


This is not true. The electrum in the earliest Lydian and Greek
coinage has a lower gold content than this, according to all of the
metallurgical studies I've seen in the literature. And it wasn't
standardized either, not at the percentage you say above or any other
percentage. Where did you read this stuff?

--

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To quote a few lines of `Greek Coinage' by J G Milne (Oxford 1931):

(quoting Aristotle in relation to his account of the evolution of
economic relations among men and specifically in the context of measures
of `exchange' and trade in general)

"For these pursuits, as Aristotle says, it was necessary to find a
convenient measure of exchange....... So the Ionian merchants found a
commodity which answered their purposes.... - electrum, a natural alloy
of gold and silver obtained from the beds of some rivers near at hand -
and made this the basis of their standard of values."

"but a novel feature soon appeared on these lumps of electrum which were
passed for purposes of trade, in the form of distinctive stamps
impressed upon them. At first these were little more than punch marks on
the surface, but gradually became a design into which one side of the
lump of metal was moulded."....etc.

Thus, it would be safe to assume that the birth of the first coinage (as
in `the very earliest')involved naturally occurring electrum and not a
mix made by man. No?

Ian



further recommended reading :

P Gardner `A History of Ancient Coinage' (Oxford 1918)

On Wed, 25 May 2005 14:31:18 GMT, "note.boy"
wrote:

It is true otherwise I wouldn't have posted it, every mention of
"electrum" that I've seen in coin books describes it as a naturally
occurring alloy of gold and silver.

This is misinformation, my good man. It's information that's
simplified and apparently repeated. Those who have actually tested
early electrum coins or who are on top of such testing by others would
strongly disagree, such as Keyser and Clark in their chapter
"Analyzing and Interpreting the Metallurgy of Early Electrum Coins" in
the 2001 book Hacksilber to Coinage: New Insights into the Monetary
History of the Near East and Greece, Wallace in his chapter "Remarks
on the Value and Standards of Early Electrum Coins" in the same book,
Ramage and Craddock in their 2000 book King Croesus' Gold: Excavations
at Sardis and the History of Gold Refining, Crowell et al. in their
article "Analyses of the Lydian Electrum, Gold and Silver Coinages" in
the 1998 issue of Metallurgy in Numismatics, etc., etc.

The gold content of early electrum coins is considerably less than the
gold content of naturally occurring electrum found in the places where
these coins were minted. The naturally occurring electrum was diluted
with silver.

I cover all this in a bit of detail he

http://rg.ancients.info/lion/article.html

The ANS is currently undertaking a project where it is metallurgically
testing the early electrum coins in its own collection.

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All very interesting my good man I'm sure but you have failed to supply
the percentages of the alloy.

Is it close to 75/25 or not?

Do the sources you quote state that it's a naturally occurring alloy or
not?

As a naturally occurring alloy some variation is bound to occur.

The early Greeks that used electrum for coin making were not capable of
refining natural electrum to "pure" gold.

This bit of your post makes no sense,

"The gold content of early electrum coins is considerably less than the
gold content of naturally occurring electrum found in the places where
these coins were minted. The naturally occurring electrum was diluted
with silver."

As only naturally occurring electrum was used by the makers of early
coins, they could not refine it and did not dilute it with more silver,
it was used "as found". The variation in the gold content resulted in
non local electrum coins being discounted in trade.

Earlier in this thread you gave me the impression that you were unaware
that electrum was a naturally occurring alloy. Billy


Reid Goldsborough wrote:

On Wed, 25 May 2005 14:31:18 GMT, "note.boy"
wrote:

It is true otherwise I wouldn't have posted it, every mention of
"electrum" that I've seen in coin books describes it as a naturally
occurring alloy of gold and silver.

This is misinformation, my good man. It's information that's
simplified and apparently repeated. Those who have actually tested
early electrum coins or who are on top of such testing by others would
strongly disagree, such as Keyser and Clark in their chapter
"Analyzing and Interpreting the Metallurgy of Early Electrum Coins" in
the 2001 book Hacksilber to Coinage: New Insights into the Monetary
History of the Near East and Greece, Wallace in his chapter "Remarks
on the Value and Standards of Early Electrum Coins" in the same book,
Ramage and Craddock in their 2000 book King Croesus' Gold: Excavations
at Sardis and the History of Gold Refining, Crowell et al. in their
article "Analyses of the Lydian Electrum, Gold and Silver Coinages" in
the 1998 issue of Metallurgy in Numismatics, etc., etc.

The gold content of early electrum coins is considerably less than the
gold content of naturally occurring electrum found in the places where
these coins were minted. The naturally occurring electrum was diluted
with silver.

I cover all this in a bit of detail he

http://rg.ancients.info/lion/article.html

The ANS is currently undertaking a project where it is metallurgically
testing the early electrum coins in its own collection.

--

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"note.boy" wrote:

All very interesting my good man I'm sure but you have failed to supply
the percentages of the alloy.

Is it close to 75/25 or not?

Do the sources you quote state that it's a naturally occurring alloy or
not?

As a naturally occurring alloy some variation is bound to occur.

The early Greeks that used electrum for coin making were not capable of
refining natural electrum to "pure" gold.

This bit of your post makes no sense,

"The gold content of early electrum coins is considerably less than the
gold content of naturally occurring electrum found in the places where
these coins were minted. The naturally occurring electrum was diluted
with silver."

As only naturally occurring electrum was used by the makers of early
coins, they could not refine it and did not dilute it with more silver,
it was used "as found". The variation in the gold content resulted in
non local electrum coins being discounted in trade.

Earlier in this thread you gave me the impression that you were unaware
that electrum was a naturally occurring alloy. Billy

Welcome to the Land of Reid. Isn't it odd to see someone speaking
authoritatively when they are obviously being schooled by yourself? ;-)

Alan
'traveled there extensively'


Reid Goldsborough wrote:

On Wed, 25 May 2005 14:31:18 GMT, "note.boy"
wrote:

It is true otherwise I wouldn't have posted it, every mention of
"electrum" that I've seen in coin books describes it as a naturally
occurring alloy of gold and silver.

This is misinformation, my good man. It's information that's
simplified and apparently repeated. Those who have actually tested
early electrum coins or who are on top of such testing by others would
strongly disagree, such as Keyser and Clark in their chapter
"Analyzing and Interpreting the Metallurgy of Early Electrum Coins" in
the 2001 book Hacksilber to Coinage: New Insights into the Monetary
History of the Near East and Greece, Wallace in his chapter "Remarks
on the Value and Standards of Early Electrum Coins" in the same book,
Ramage and Craddock in their 2000 book King Croesus' Gold: Excavations
at Sardis and the History of Gold Refining, Crowell et al. in their
article "Analyses of the Lydian Electrum, Gold and Silver Coinages" in
the 1998 issue of Metallurgy in Numismatics, etc., etc.

The gold content of early electrum coins is considerably less than the
gold content of naturally occurring electrum found in the places where
these coins were minted. The naturally occurring electrum was diluted
with silver.

I cover all this in a bit of detail he

http://rg.ancients.info/lion/article.html

The ANS is currently undertaking a project where it is metallurgically
testing the early electrum coins in its own collection.

--

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On Wed, 25 May 2005 16:05:38 GMT, "note.boy"
wrote:

All very interesting my good man I'm sure but you have failed to supply
the percentages of the alloy.

Actually, I do state this, not in a post in this thread but at the
page of mine I pointed you to:

"These coins have a higher content of both silver and copper than
naturally occurring electrum. Western Anatolian electrum/gold has a
gold content of 70 to 90 percent, while these coins have a gold
content of 50 to 60 percent, with most of those that have been
analyzed consisting of around 53 percent gold."

The early Greeks that used electrum for coin making were not capable of
refining natural electrum to "pure" gold.

This also is not true, I'm afraid. To put it more accurate, some
scholars believe that the early Greeks and Lydians did in fact have
the technology to refine pure gold. I'll point again to the page of
mine I pointed you to earlier:

"The archeological evidence suggests that pure gold may have been
refined at Sardis [where the first coins were likely minted] as early
as the third millennium BC, according to G. Hanfmann, "Lydian Culture
and Society," Sardis from Prehistoric to Roman Times, edited by G.
Hanfmann, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1983, p. 76.
Furthermore, textual evidence suggests that pure gold was being
refined in Mesopotamia in the second millennium BC, according to P.
Keyser and D. Clark, "Analyzing and Interpreting the Metallurgy of
Early Electrum Coins," Hacksilberto Coinage: New Insights into the
Monetary History of the Near East and Greece, American Numismatic
Society, New York, 2001, p. 110. Hanfmann pointed out that there's no
proof of continuity into the first millennium BC, though it seems
unlikely that such an important technology would have been lost even
during the "dark age" that followed the fall of the Hittite empire c.
1200 BC.

This bit of your post makes no sense,

"The gold content of early electrum coins is considerably less than the
gold content of naturally occurring electrum found in the places where
these coins were minted. The naturally occurring electrum was diluted
with silver."

As only naturally occurring electrum was used by the makers of early
coins, they could not refine it and did not dilute it with more silver,
it was used "as found". The variation in the gold content resulted in
non local electrum coins being discounted in trade.

This again is not true. It's nearly certain that the first coins were
made with naturally occurring electrum that had been diluted with
silver. What's more, the first coins were not used in trade or
commerce, according to the archeological evidence, as I point out.

Earlier in this thread you gave me the impression that you were unaware
that electrum was a naturally occurring alloy. Billy

Read the page I pointed you to, please, before making wild statements
like this. I'm very much aware that electrum occurred naturally!

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On Wed, 25 May 2005 15:29:58 GMT, Ian
wrote:

To quote a few lines of `Greek Coinage' by J G Milne (Oxford 1931):

(quoting Aristotle in relation to his account of the evolution of
economic relations among men and specifically in the context of measures
of `exchange' and trade in general)

"For these pursuits, as Aristotle says, it was necessary to find a
convenient measure of exchange....... So the Ionian merchants found a
commodity which answered their purposes.... - electrum, a natural alloy
of gold and silver obtained from the beds of some rivers near at hand -
and made this the basis of their standard of values."

"but a novel feature soon appeared on these lumps of electrum which were
passed for purposes of trade, in the form of distinctive stamps
impressed upon them. At first these were little more than punch marks on
the surface, but gradually became a design into which one side of the
lump of metal was moulded."....etc.

Thus, it would be safe to assume that the birth of the first coinage (as
in `the very earliest')involved naturally occurring electrum and not a
mix made by man. No?

I'm afraid this is old "knowledge," no longer valid. As I pointed out
on my Web page on the first coins (which is based on two published
articles of mine), it's now fairly certain that Aristotle was talking
about how coins had evolved to be used in his time and extrapolating
backward, incorrectly, to the first coinage. The first coins were not
used as coins were used in Aristotle's time, to facilitate commerce
and trade, according to current archeological evidence, which didn't
exist 75 years ago when Milne wrote the above.

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