More on test cuts

"Reid Goldsborough" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 7 Aug 2003 00:11:23 +1000, "A.Gent"
wrote:

Trust me on this one, Reid.
You belt a coin hard enough to produce a deep trench, and the other side
suffers. Newton's third.

So how would you then explain when and why these test cuts were made?

When & why?
I could only speculate.
Some previous posters have.
I'm only prepared to stick my neck out on the "how" at this stage.
The evidence strongly suggests a measure of care was taken to support the
coin when the blow was struck. (Else there would be damage) This implies
that the person making the cut:
1) cared about reverse-side damage, &
2) was willing and able to avoid it.

Motive?
I've no idea.
I find it somewhat strange that someone who would happily belt a deep gouge
into the face of a coin, just to verify its authenticity, would be concerned
about slightly flattening the other side.

....but the evidence suggests it.

"A.Gent" wrote:


I find it somewhat strange that someone who would happily belt a deep gouge
into the face of a coin, just to verify its authenticity, would be concerned
about slightly flattening the other side.

...but the evidence suggests it.

It's more likely an unintended side effect, the happy circumstance that
the material (I'm still thinking its a soft wood) protected the opposite
side.

Now add the thought of a heated coin... ;-)

Alan
'hot drachms at the Lido Hotel'

"Alan & Erin Williams" wrote in message
...

Now add the thought of a heated coin... ;-)

Alan
'hot drachms at the Lido Hotel'

LOL!
Now I'm getting visions of money-laundering

'hot money'

Some people in this thread think the owls might have been placed on a
bed of sand or on a piece of soft wood such as pine as to not damage the
other side of the coin when the test strike was made. My guess is they
placed the coin on a animal hide such as a camel skin I think that would
be a great cushion to absorb the impact of a strike to the coin when
being whacked. I also think the people way back then took their coins to
an assayer to be checked. I don't think everyone in ancient times
carried a hammer and chisel around with them. Naturally I can't back any
of my guesses with hard fact so remember these are just my guesses. Ed

Alan & Erin Williams wrote:

So these cuts could easily have been part of the tax
collector's job. ;-)


A distinct possibility, but tax collectors carried wooden clubs with a
rusty iron nail protruding (somethings never change). I would have
expected to see right through the coin if they and their tax
compliancing tools had been employed in the process. :-)

Ian

Alan
'IRS verifies my account'

Reid Goldsborough wrote:
On Wed, 06 Aug 2003 09:13:25 +0100, Ian
wrote:


It is probably going right up to the bounds of credibility to suggest
that the coins were minted with the `test cut' already prevalent (mind
you, stranger things have happened), but I am beginning to think that
whoever placed those test cuts on these coins were quite skilled in the
process. There must have been a `knack' to it by all apparencies.


Your first premise here isn't realistic. Looking at the coin, you can
see how the metal was displaced. These cuts weren't engraved into the
dies.

I kind of figured on that.

Your second premise is more realistic. I suspect that a certain
percentage of coins that were test cut were cut in half by mistake.
But again, given the thickness of the earlier coins (think in terms of
nugget or ingot rather than disk or platter), it would have taken far
greater force to do this than to mere cut into the coin.


With regard to the religious observations and the culture prevalent at
the time, one could surmise that only a very brave person or a complete
idiot would have dared to damage (or be associated with damaging) the
image of Pallas Athene (either by design or by accident).

Given that the test cuts are ikely to have been performed by a
`professional'(possibly a moneyer) in order to prevent such desecration
but at the same time perform a `test' for good metal, it is fairly
logical to suggest that the testing was done at the behest of the
`state' (for whatever purpose).....but for what purpose would they then
be testing their own coinage?

I think it must have been tested in bulk lots as paym,ent for whatever.
Most likely with the person being paid being present while the testing
was conducted. Then again ........maybe not.

"Edward McGrath" wrote in message
...
Some people in this thread think the owls might have been placed on a
bed of sand or on a piece of soft wood such as pine as to not damage the
other side of the coin when the test strike was made. My guess is they
placed the coin on a animal hide such as a camel skin I think that would
be a great cushion to absorb the impact of a strike to the coin when
being whacked. I also think the people way back then took their coins to
an assayer to be checked. I don't think everyone in ancient times
carried a hammer and chisel around with them. Naturally I can't back any
of my guesses with hard fact so remember these are just my guesses. Ed


I think the camel would object.

On Wed, 06 Aug 2003 16:27:26 +0100, Ian
wrote:

With regard to the religious observations and the culture prevalent at
the time, one could surmise that only a very brave person or a complete
idiot would have dared to damage (or be associated with damaging) the
image of Pallas Athene (either by design or by accident).

I don't see this. Athenian Owls circulated very widely around the
ancient world. Some trader in Egypt, Sicily, Anatolia, or whatever
wouldn't have cared a wink about defacing a little owl, the symbol of
some foreign god he doesn't worship.

--

Coin Collecting: Consumer Guide: http://rg.ancients.info/guide
Glomming: Coin Connoisseurship: http://rg.ancients.info/glom
Bogos: Counterfeit Coins: http://rg.ancients.info/bogos

Reid Goldsborough wrote:

On Wed, 06 Aug 2003 16:27:26 +0100, Ian
wrote:


With regard to the religious observations and the culture prevalent at
the time, one could surmise that only a very brave person or a complete
idiot would have dared to damage (or be associated with damaging) the
image of Pallas Athene (either by design or by accident).


I don't see this. Athenian Owls circulated very widely around the
ancient world. Some trader in Egypt, Sicily, Anatolia, or whatever
wouldn't have cared a wink about defacing a little owl, the symbol of
some foreign god he doesn't worship.


Firstly, who was talking about caring about the damage done to a little
owl? I made mention of `the image of Pallas Athene'....

It is exactly because some trader in Egypt is unlikely to give a `hoot'
about some foreign god, that he is as likely to smack Pallas Athene
across the face with his chisel (or whatever implement)....now how many
examples like that have you seen...any depth of cut?

The idea of an egyptian trader doing test cuts, romantic as it might be,
just doesn't add up IMO.

You are taking the cultural concepts in isolation from the rest of the
picture, but in any event I see no evidence whatsoever of anything other
than extreme care having been exercised in producing the test cut. I
suspect that the test cuts were in fact done by moneyers of the state
and at the state's behest. Original dies may well have been involved. No
matter, whoever did the cuts was a `professional'. They would have to be
to avoid resulting damage to the obverse.

Now...why would they want to avoid resulting damage to the obverse in
the first place? ....indeed why not just smack Pallas Athene across the
face? if those foreign demon worshipers had been testing the metal, we
would expect a percentage of descrated Athene portraits surely? How many
can you recall seeing?

On Wed, 6 Aug 2003 11:20:25 -0400 (EDT), (Edward
McGrath) wrote:

Some people in this thread think the owls might have been placed on a
bed of sand or on a piece of soft wood such as pine as to not damage the
other side of the coin when the test strike was made. My guess is they
placed the coin on a animal hide such as a camel skin I think that would
be a great cushion to absorb the impact of a strike to the coin when
being whacked.

This makes sense, to me.

I also think the people way back then took their coins to
an assayer to be checked. I don't think everyone in ancient times
carried a hammer and chisel around with them.

It also makes sense for some people in ancient times to specialize in
testing coins for authenticity, perhaps a money changer or banker. But
I can see merchants and traders doing this as well, with their own
tools. A hammer and chisel isn't very heavy when you're carry several
donkey's worth of grain.

These coins had a huge intrinsic value in their day. There are
numerous ways to gauge the value of ancient coins, these and others.
In short, checking my references quickly, based on the literature of
antiquity, in fifth century BC Athens a refugee family could subsist
on 2 obols a day. A drachm consists of 6 obols, and a tetradrachm 4
drachms. So one of these Owls could provide the subsistence living
expenses for a refugee family for nearly two weeks. Another way of
looking at this is that a typical laborer, say a hoplite or rower,
received one drachm a day in wages, so these Owls were the equivalent
of four days' wages. A third way is that jurors received 3 obols a
day, so one of these Owls would pay for eight days of jury work.

Because of their significant value, when a transaction was made, it
probably made sense, in some cases, for a merchant or trader to test
the integrity of the coins right there, rather than seek out a
specialist to test these coins after the payer had left.

--

Coin Collecting: Consumer Guide: http://rg.ancients.info/guide
Glomming: Coin Connoisseurship: http://rg.ancients.info/glom
Bogos: Counterfeit Coins: http://rg.ancients.info/bogos