Electrum

On 13 Oct 2003 18:44:44 GMT, (Ankaaz) wrote:

Admit it, Reid. You've been bested yet again by Michael and you just can't
stand it, can you?

Duh, yup, dat's whut happened. I be bested and I mad! Astute
observation.

I'd still like to know why the heck are you defending him. Did you
write this article for him? Can't he defend his own position? His
position, once again, was counter to the established wisdom, and he
has to expect that not everybody is going to agree with it hook, line,
and sinker. No one else I've read, and I've read just about all the
literature about this written over the past half century, in English
anyway, has said that most pre-Alexander III gold coins are actually
electrum coins. That's his main thesis, and to support this, as I've
said, he had to redefine the meaning of electrum.

--

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

Alan & Erin Williams wrote in
:

I'll say no more, lest it be entered into his mythology that I believe
electrum is being used to terrorize heroin addicts in Panama.


Why would Carmen Electrum want to terrorize heroin addicts in Panama?

Reid wrote:

"I'd still like to know why the heck are you defending him. Did you write this
article for him? Can't he defend his own position? His
position, once again, was counter to the established wisdom, and he has to
expect that not everybody is going to agree with it hook, line, and sinker. No
one else I've read, and I've read just about all the
literature about this written over the past half century, in English anyway,
has said that most pre-Alexander III gold coins are actually electrum coins.
That's his main thesis, and to support this, as I've said, he had to redefine
the meaning of electrum."


My main objective here is not to defend Michael or his article, but to send a
message to the readers of RCC. No one here should take your comments at face
value, especially when they are directed at MEM or his work. Had your
synthesis of this article been done as a classroom assignment, you would have
received an F. Your paraphrasing is totally inaccurate. You invent freely.
You assume the author's intent. You cite out of context. You stress totally
innocuous portions of the article and elevate them to the level of "thesis."
You miss the article's thrust entirely.

And you think you can get away with this little critique of yours because you
assume that no one here on RCC reads The Celator.

Well, some of us do.




Anka Z
Co-president of the once thriving, but now defunct, Tommy John Fan Club.
Go, Lake County Captains!

DFloyd wrote:

Alan & Erin Williams wrote in
:

I'll say no more, lest it be entered into his mythology that I believe
electrum is being used to terrorize heroin addicts in Panama.


Why would Carmen Electrum want to terrorize heroin addicts in Panama?

I have No Riega. Absolutely No Riega.

Alan
'Papa Doc Duvalier, your friend from Alcoa is here...'

"A.Gent" wrote
Have cake...
...eat it too.

Thanks! I appreciate the fact that you did not "need" to be my
second, but that your own sense of justice independently motivated you
to subscribe.

I have cutted and pasted the salient passages.
More later.

Michael
"It's not personal, Miohael, it's just business."
Michael goes to restroom.

(Ankaaz) wrote:
This is backpedaling.
Permit me to blow away some of your smokescreen....
My advice to you is to take a remedial reading course.

Thanks! You and I have never been able to sort out who first
suggested that we could make a pretty good career writing into his
areas of ignorance.

Laurel's Dad got a clean bill of health from his oncologist. I will
have more time for the newsgroup soon.

Michael
"Put your hand inside your coat and stand here."

On 13 Oct 2003 23:28:25 GMT, (Ankaaz) wrote:

My main objective here is not to defend Michael or his article, but to send a
message to the readers of RCC. No one here should take your comments at face
value, especially when they are directed at MEM or his work. Had your
synthesis of this article been done as a classroom assignment, you would have
received an F. Your paraphrasing is totally inaccurate.

These are HIS words: "Natural and artificial electrum served as the
most common form of 'gold' coinage until about 330 BC when nominally
pure gold coins from Philip II of Macedon and his son Alexander
flooded the Greek world." My paraphrase EXACTLY represented this. I
said that Michael's stated that "electrum coins were the most common
form of 'gold' coins until about 330 BC."

Michael's above statement was in the FIRST paragraph of his article.
This was his thesis. He spent much of the rest of the article talking
about all the "electrum" coins in the Greek world, according to his
own brand new yet unarticulated definition of electrum.

You invent freely.

That's absolute rubbish. You're now defending him indiscriminately,
like you're married to him or something. I invented nothing in any of
my posts in this discussion. I've disagreed with his position and his
approach and I've spelled out why. There's nothing personal about any
of this. I have absolutely nothing against Michael, personally. He's a
skillful wordsmith, as I've said here many times. I just disagree with
the information that he has put out and his approach in putting it
out, with this article, as I did with his previous Alexander the Great
article as well. This being a discussion group, I'm discussing this.

You assume the author's intent.

There's nothing to assume. All you have to do is read his articles. In
all -- let me hedge here and say many -- of the feature articles of
his that I've read recently, he has tried to overturn the established
wisdom, as he did with this one on electrum coinage. So, yes, that's
his intent. I don't have to assume this. It's there in black and
white. It's fine to attempt this. Noble, actually. This is one way
that new knowledge is created. But if you do this, you should back up
what you say with new evidence or logic.

Yu cite out of context. You stress totally
innocuous portions of the article and elevate them to the level of "thesis."

Again, the sentence I quoted was in his first paragraph. I didn't have
to elevate anything. I didn't cite anything out of context.

You offer these lame rejoinders, that I'm inventing, that I'm
misparaphrasing, that I'm citing out of context, and all the rest when
none of this is true. You've reached the ****y level, not discussing
the substantive numismatic issues involved here but countering with
absolute nonsense. It's become a joke. Michael is silent, and you
defend him like a charging she-bear protecting her young.

--

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 in message
...
On Mon, 13 Oct 2003 16:58:25 +1000, "A.Gent"
wrote:

Unless you lived in Britain during the 18th century, when you could be
hanged for passing off .90 as "silver".

You see?
Differect place, different standard.
Same word, different meaning.
Standards are neither writ in stone nor cast in gold.

Good point, but not particularly relevant, and you didn't answer my
question. Here it is again: Would you write an article about debased
coinage through history and include the entire run of circulating U.S.
silver coins in it?

Of course not.
Unless I was ironically discussing the rigour of the British silver
standard.
Is that intended to refer to MM's article? Its a pretty crook analogy if so.


U.S. silver coins are in fact made of "silver," as this word is
understood in the U.S. And since the U.S. is the world's dominant
power, what the Brits think about this means squat. Besides, our coins
are nicer than yours. And then there's the War of Independence and the
War of 1812, which you've totally neglected to mention. And Lizzy on
all those coins. Come on!

I'm not a Brit (irrelevant, though).
I don't see a smiley, so I guess you're joking.
Wars and Liz? Not trying to change the subject, are you?

BTW, the Engineering Encylopaedia which I consulted yesterday (the one which
defined electrum as nickel-silver) was published in the US - *your* US.

You can't just *choose* which definition of electrum is the *correct* one -
just on the basis of your comfort with it - or Pliny's.
Fact is, electrum has been (and still is) defined as many, many different
alloys, including one which doesn't even include gold OR silver.
You can't just say: "There! That's the definition I choose - therefore that
is the *correct* one."

Correction: You "shouldn't". Obviously you *can*, because you do.

"Reid Goldsborough" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 13 Oct 2003 17:21:58 +1000, "A.Gent"
wrote:

Close but no cigar - you're confusing bimetallic with bimetallism.
(seriously)
Bimetallic = those appalling silver (or whatever) coins with a gold (or
whatever) middle bit.
Bimetallism - the ability of a currency to allow equivalence between
coins
of different alloys; e.g. one gold blazoo = 16 silver widgets. This
requires an abstract unit - like "dollar"

Both the words "bimetallic" and "bimetallism" are used in reference to
the issuing of coins in relatively pure gold and silver. The former is
simply an adjective, the latter a noun. Look through the literature.
Or do a Google search.

Patronising again.
I understand figures of speech.
I also understood MM's article.
Plainly you didn't.
Perhaps the suggestion elswhere in this thread that you could use a remedial
reading course is not just so silly after all.

(...and my explanation of bimetallism, in this context, was a better one
than yours.)

Karma.

"Reid Goldsborough" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 13 Oct 2003 17:08:53 +1000, "A.Gent"
wrote:

Who gets to decide that specialists in the subject (metallurgists) should
be
excluded from the debate?

Nobody is talking about excluding anybody from any debate.

to wit:
=========================================
"Reid Goldsborough" wrote in message
...
We're not talking about metallurgy, or about "some" experts in
metallurgy. We're talking about numismatics and about usage in
numismatics.
==========================================
said Reid, excluding some experts in metallurgy.

and then:
===========================================
"Reid Goldsborough" wrote in message
...
We're also not talking about Pliny's observations. We're talking about
a definition that he made, which numismatists have followed for the
past two thousand years. Except Michael.
============================================
and hundreds of other authorities and texts, but that's irrelevant, because
Reid has decided which definition is the "right" one.



What I'm
talking about is common usage --

Au contraire. You're talking Reid useage. Exclusive usage. Definitely *not*
"common" usage.

.... how words are used and what they're
understood to mean. Numismatists use the word electrum to mean a
certain thing. This is a numismatic discussion group, the Celator is a
numismatic publication, and the subject matter at hand is ...
numismatics! What point does it serve to change the definition of a
word used in a numismatic context some others in another context use
it differently? That's my point.

I'll type this real slowly. Reid it carefully ;-) and digest it before
you leap to the keyboard. Here goes:

MM's article offered (amongst many other things) a comprehensive discussion
of a number of definitions of electrum. He did not "change" THE definition
of electrum. He highlighted that which exists in the literature.
It's what we call research.
Try it. You might like it.


The only purpose it served with Michael's article was to allow him to
include many more coins as "electrum" coins than he would have been
able to do otherwise. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with this,
but he should have been clear that he was changing

NO - *He* didn't change anything!

...the meaning of
"electrum" from how everyone else

(Read: Reid)

...in numismatics understands the word
and has used the word for the past two thousand years.

Uh huh.
You know this for a fact?