By probing the metal content of coins exchanged thousands of years ago in Mediterranean Europe, the scientists have discovered a new way to map ancient trade patterns, to retrace economic ups and downs at the dawn of Western Civilization and even to shed new light on the collapse of the Roman Empire.

“As we determine what the coins are made of, we are then able to reconstruct ancient trade routes, understand the development of economies and even determine the extent of counterfeiting,” McMaster archeologist Dr.Spencer Pope states in a project summary issued Tuesday. “This research will help us link the archeological to the historical to understand how we, as a society, got to where we are today.”

A joint project between the university’s classics department and its department of medical physics and applied radiation sciences, the ancient coin initiative involves x-ray analysis and a “proton microprobe” to determine how much silver, bronze or gold is contained in each piece of money.

“We use multiple systems to look for a number of metals — gold, copper, silver — present in the outer layer of the coins,” said radiation scientist Michael Farquharson. “Then we use the McMaster Nuclear Reactor to penetrate deeper into the coin to determine whether or not the coin was plated with a different material than it was actually made of.”

“For the Roman period, there are many crises that can be recognized in the numismatic record,” said Pope, describing one “budget crunch” during Punic Wars of the 3rd century B.C., when Rome was battling Carthage — centred in present-day Tunisia — for control of the Mediterranean world.

“We can see metal coins begin to have more base metal — junk metal — added to ‘debase’ the coins,” he noted. “As Rome and other cities fall into crises and get into economic trouble, more bronze coins appear (rather than silver), and even these are diluted by tin or lead.” So far, about 20 coins have undergone this “deep probe”.

Pope hopes the research team will be able to achieve enough precision in its analysis to reliably identify the geographic sources of the metals for each coin and become a global centre of excellence for such investigations. For example, the silver mine on the Greek island of Siphons, located in the Aegean Sea between Greece and Turkey, was known to be a major metal source. There was another major mining operation near Athens.

Trace elements found in each coin can help pinpoint its geographic and geological origins, allowing the team to better understand where Greek city-states turned for metal supplies and how widely coins were circulated. This should help scholars “get at the heart of the development of the Greek city-state” and use findings about metal supplies to determine the degree of each city’s economic self-sufficiency or whether it was “grasping at available resources.”

Plans for another 100-coin study to expand the database of information are planned which should help researchers begin drawing more detailed conclusions about the economy of the ancient world.

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“These historic, Southern California large and small-size notes have been off the market for decades in his collection. There are several unique and serial number one examples,” said Larry Goldberg, partner with his cousin, Ira, in the auction firm.

Photo Caption: The First National Bank of Santa Ana, 1902 $10 Red Seal, PCGS Currency VG10, unique, the only known Red Seal from Orange County California, is one of the highlights of the William Pannier Collection to be offered in an auction by Ira & Larry Goldberg Coins & Collectibles, January 31 – February 2, 2011. Photo credit: Lyle Engelson for Ira & Larry Goldberg Coins & Collectibles

Pannier, who died in August at the age of 66, was the long-time owner of Fullerton Coin & Stamp Company, the oldest coin and stamp store in Orange County California. Well-known collector and real estate developer Dwight Manley worked at the shop on weekends as a teenager, and considers Pannier a beloved numismatic mentor.

Pannier began collecting silver certificate notes in the late 1960s and then became interested in Orange County currency, according to his brother David.
“We were second generation Orange County residents. Orange County was in our roots. Some of the notes were displayed at the store, but he kept the more pricey things at home. He always tried to upgrade the notes or get a lower serial number for his collection,” David Pannier recalled.

Highlights of the Orange County California bank notes in the Goldberg’s auction include:

• The First National Bank of Fullerton, 1882 $10 Value Back, graded PCGS Currency VF30, the finest of only three known Value Backs from the entire county;

• The Farmers & Merchants National Bank of Santa Ana, 1902 $20 Date Back, PCGS Currency VF20PPQ, one of only four known from the bank;

• The First National Bank of La Habra, 1902 $10 Plain Back, PCGS Currency VG10, one of only two known from the town;

• The National Bank of Orange, 1902 $10 Date Back, PCGS Currency Very Choice New 64, the finest known large size note from this bank;

• The Placentia National Bank of Placentia, 1902 $10 Plain Back, PCGS Currency VF25, one of only seven notes known from the town;

• First National Trust & Savings Bank of Fullerton, 1902 $10 Plain Back, PCGS Currency F12, one of only four known large size notes from this bank;

• The First National Bank of Santa Ana, 1902 $10 Red Seal, PCGS Currency VG10, unique, the only known Red Seal from Orange County California;

• The First National Bank of Garden Grove, 1902 $5 Plain Back, PCGS Currency F15, one of only 10 large size notes known from the town;

• The First National Bank of Santa Ana, 1929 $10 Type 1, PCGS Currency VF20, the only known serial number 1 on a Santa Ana note;

• The First National Bank of Tustin, 1929 $10 Type I, PCGS Currency VF20;

• The First National Bank of Olive, 1929 $10 Type 1, PCGS Currency VF30PPQ, one of the two finest of nine small-sized notes known from the town;

• Oilfields National Bank of Brea, 1929 $5 Type 2, PCGS Currency Choice About New 58PPQ;

• and an uncut, six-subject, serial number 1 sheet of Anaheim First National Bank 1929 $20 Type 1 notes, PCGS Currency About New 58 PPQ.

David Pannier remembers his thoughts the first time he saw the huge gold nugget that his brother purchased about eight years ago: “My God! You can’t put that in a necklace!” The impressive nugget was displayed at the coin store for years, but when Willie Pannier became ill early in 2010 he took it home and used it as a paper weight, according to his brother. “He liked to look at it and admire it.”

Photo Caption: Nicknamed “The Fullerton Boulder,” this 34.705 ounce gold nugget (photographed next to a quarter-dollar for size perspective) is one of the highlights of the William Pannier Collection to be offered in an auction by Ira & Larry Goldberg Coins & Collectibles, January 31 – February 2, 2011. Photo credit: Lyle Engelson for Ira & Larry Goldberg Coins & Collectibles

“This is the largest gold nugget we’ve ever offered for sale in our 50 years in numismatics. It weighs 34.705 ounces,” said Larry Goldberg.

The Fullerton Coin & Stamp Co. opened in 1961 and will mark its 50th year in 2011. William Pannier bought the store in 1976. After he died of cancer in August, Manley acquired the store and reopened it.

“There was only one Willie. He was a very special, one-of-a-kind person who transcended from another era. I brought him to the American Numismatic Association for the first time in 2003 to attend the renaming of the library in my honor. He was an important part of many people’s lives including mine and my children’s. We will always love him,” said Manley.

Lot viewing for the auction will be conducted January 24 – February 2, 2011 at the Beverly Hills, California offices of Ira & Larry Goldberg Coins & Collectibles, 350 South Beverly Dr., Suite 350. The auction will be conducted at the Crowne Plaza Beverly Hills Hotel, 1150 South Beverly Dr., January 31 – February 2.

For additional information about the collection and other coin and bank note items in the auction, contact Ira & Larry Goldberg Coins & Collectibles by phone at (800) 978-2646, by email at info@GoldbergCoins.com or visit online at www.GoldbergCoins.com.

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Customers who had been on the preorder queue, many for several months, were instantly impressed with the heft and sheer beauty of the book which tips the scales at just short of ten pounds. Amazon and Facebook fan page reviews continued praise in monolothic response with the common denominator being the breathtaking scope of the information covered and the eye candy of so many thousands of rare coins reproduced in high resolution color photography; a welcome departure from the customary fuzzy gray images otherwise so prevalent in numismatic literature.

The sizzle may sell but ultimately it’s the steak that feeds. ERIC II’s content catalogues a dizzying 60,000+ coin varieties far outclassing all previous Roman reference works in this critical metric then adds current market pricing and rarity data in an innovative approach that is considerably more accurate than the vague price guides published up until now.

Besides the text dealing directly with the coinage, the author has crammed every nook and cranny with biographical and historical notes relevant to each of the reigns. Even in this capacity, where photographs are not essential, the author nevertheless spares no opportunity to include even more of them in a bid to make each of its almost 300 sections a tidy, self-contained database of all the knowledge pertinent to that domain thus earning it the encyclopedia status of its namesake title.

First printing limited to 3,000 units, $149.95. Autographed and numbered copies of ERIC II: The Encyclopedia of Roman Imperial Coins may be ordered from the publisher’s website at dirtyoldbooks.com

About the Author

Rasiel Suarez is owner and co-founder of Dirty Old Coins, LLC, a company founded in 2002 with the vision of bringing the hobby of ancient coin collecting to a broad demographic largely unaware that owning genuine ancient coins was both possible and affordable. 2005 saw the release of his first book, The Encyclopedia of Roman Imperial Coins, which broke new ground in making the subject much more accessible to those entering the hobby.

By 2007 the company had sold over one million Roman coins by way of retail-ready coin kits that taught thousands of families how to restore these ancient artifacts using the same methods museums use. His success as an author and recognized expert in the field of Roman numismatics was cemented by the release of the second edition of his Encyclopedia in the Fall of 2010. An avid traveler and photographer, Rasiel lives with his family in Olympia, Washington.

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The classification of cultures generally tracks along two interrelated lines: chronological and geographical. For centuries, coin collectors struggled with the lack of a coherent system for cataloguing the vast array of issues from antiquity through the modern era. Joseph Eckhel (1737-1798), a secularized Jesuit abbot who served as numismatist to the imperial court of the Holy Roman Empire, devised a system for arranging coins geographically that is still in use today.

This system basically records coins in a progression beginning at the northeast quadrant of the Mediterranean basin and continuing from west to east, then south through the Levant and from east to west through northern Africa. Though far from perfect, nobody has yet devised a better approach for non-Roman coins. The classification of coins and cultures into chronological divisions is far more complex than the Echkel scheme.

Chronologically, the primary divisions of coinage are almost universally accepted as being Ancient, Medieval and Modern. Within the United States, collectors tend to separate U.S. coins from the modern coins of other nations by referring to the latter as “World Coins.” Coins in the West were first struck in Western Anatolia during the 7th century BC. The transition point between ancient and medieval is more difficult to date.

Some would argue that the end of the ancient period is coincident with the fall of Rome in AD 476. Others choose the accession of Anastasius I in AD 491 as the transition point. But, almost everyone who collects “Byzantine” coins thinks of them as being “ancient” even though they start with the accession of Anastasius and end in 1453 with the fall of Constantinople.

Likewise, coins struck in India and Central Asia are typically thought of as ancient up to the Islamic conquests, which did not happen at a single point in time.

Further complicating the chronological classification, coins of the post-Roman era in western Europe (e.g. Spain, Gaul, Britain and Germany) from as early as the sixth century AD are thought of by many as ‘Medieval”.

In fact, by the time of Constantinople’s fall, some coinage in western Europe is already being thought of by collectors and scholars as falling into the “Modern” or “World” classification. The incongruity is difficult to understand and even more difficult to explain to a new collector.

Illustration Note: [Above] Imago Mundi – Babylonian map, the oldest known world map, 6th century BCE .

From a purely practical point of view, the distinction may not be all that important. After all, a rose is a rose…. But, to a cataloguer it is frequently a conundrum. Perhaps the next Joseph Eckhel is reading these lines right now and conjuring up a system that will allow for the vastly differing cultural environments and reshape our definitions in a way that seems sensible.

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America’s coinage has undergone many changes in over two centuries, with frequent modifications to denominations, varieties, metals, and designs. Perhaps the most activity occurred in 1873. After three years of deliberation, the U. S. Congress passed a comprehensive Coinage Act that was signed by President Grant on February 12, 1873. The Act was an effort to reform and consolidate the coinage system. It embraced the gold standard and demonetized silver, fueling the competition between the powerful mining interests. But its results, intended and unintended, caused the Coinage Act to be called the “Crime of 1873.”

Illustration Note: John Gast’s 1872 painting American Progress was an allegorical representation of Manifest Destiny. An angelic Columbia, a personification of the United States, carries the light of “civilization” westward with American settlers, stringing telegraph wire as she travels. American Indians and wild animals fl ee—or lead the way—into the darkness of the “uncivilized” West.

As a partial result of the legislation, the year 1873 saw the minting of 20 different coin designs in 13 denominations. Struggles grew between the backers of gold, silver, and nickel coinage. Gold was the winner, so was nickel. Silver lost. New designs were created at the three U.S. Mints when arrows were placed beside the date on three silver denominations to indicate a weight change. Four coin designs were dropped, and a new coin type added. Nine coin designs continued without major change. A dozen coin designs also sport both an “Open 3” and “Close 3” in the date, yielding more varieties. A busy year! Of course collectors may not consider the results as a “crime,” but as a bonanza and a collection challenge. A one-year set of 1873 coins is still a worthy goal for many.

In 1873, Ulysses Grant was beginning his second term as President. The country’s continuing push for “Manifest Destiny” led pioneers across the West to populate the entire continent. The California gold rush was into the third decade of providing material for gold coinage. A new Mint building we now call the “Granite Lady” was about to open in San Francisco, which would make it the world’s largest mint at the time. The three-year-old Carson City Mint was producing gold and silver from Nevada’s Comstock Lode. And that year’s Coinage Act created chaos and confusion, even contributing to a national depression.

The Coinage Act of 1873: Good Intentions, Mixed Results

By the late 1860s, the U.S. coinage system was an illogical mix of denominations, designs, and types. The Mint was producing three-cent pieces in both silver and nickel, five-cent coins in the same two metals, and dollars in two metals: silver and gold. Some versions had clearly become superfluous. As the Government reviewed their coinage system, they concluded that the basic monetary law of 1837, as amended several times, was no longer adequate to serve the nation’s needs. The U.S. coinage laws needed streamlining and strengthening, and a proposal was drafted. The result was a lengthy bill, with mixed consequences.

When the Act of 1873 was passed, few considered it a “crime.” The term didn’t arise until several years later. Then the silver miners and their powerful friends in Washington, disgruntled by a decline in silver coin production, blamed the Act for all their troubles, mainly because it had abolished silver dollars.

Three Weights Changed to “Metric”

As part of the 1873 coinage overhaul, the weights of the dime, quarter, and half dollar were increased by 5% to simplify their value stated in grams. This was part of Congress’ modest attempt to introduce the metric system into the nation’s coinage, following the standard used by European countries. But Mint tolerances were broad enough on all denominations that old planchets satisfied the new standards. There was no way to distinguish new and old planchets, and the weight standardization, then as now, did not improve public support of the metric system.

By the time the Act took effect, the Mint had already produced significant numbers of 1873 silver coins at the old weights. Officials decided to place distinctive arrows alongside the date on the new, slightly heavier coins. The Mint had used the same device in 1853 to denote a slight reduction in weight. This time, the arrows appeared for only two years and were dropped without comment at the end of 1874.

Four Designs Dropped

Four coin designs were eliminated by the Act of 1873, the most ever dropped in any one year. The Act omitted the two cent denomination, introduced in 1864 because of the coin shortages caused by the Civil War. Mintages dwindled after the war when fewer citizens and banks called for the denomination. No protests were heard. Also deleted were two silver coins being minted in parallel with nickel equivalents. Silver three cent coins had been minted along with nickel three cents since 1865, and in the final years many circulation issues were melted. The silver half dime had a similar counterpart: the nickel five-cent piece. Industrialist Joseph Wharton had been promoting nickel for coinage for decades; not surprisingly his empire monopolized nickel production. The writers of the Act of 1873 met his desires by continuing the nickel 3¢ and 5¢ versions instead of the silver ones.

Perhaps the biggest uproar was caused by the abolishment of the silver dollar. The silver dollar, like the silver three cent and half dime, competed with another similar-denomination coin: the gold dollar. Although silver dollars were the foundation of our monetary system, they did not comprise even 1% of circulating silver. The silver discoveries at the Comstock Lode and other mines had lowered the metal’s market value in relation to gold.

In dropping silver dollars from the Mint’s production lineup, the Act of 1873 seemed to declare that large silver coins were seeing little use in the nation’s commerce. Initially, the silver interests didn’t put up much resistance, because the law provided an alternate outlet for their bullion with the newly authorized trade dollar. As the decade wore on, huge supplies of earlier U.S. silver coins, hoarded during the war, returned to circulation from their hiding places abroad. This forced the Mint to curtail production of new silver coins. The drastic reduction in coinage coincided with a dramatic increase in silver-mining activity. The silver interests were squeezed, and they screamed—belatedly but loudly—that a “crime” had been committed at their expense. Their efforts eventually resulted in the Bland-Allison Act in 1878 and the return to bimetallism. The Treasury was required starting in 1878 to purchase large amounts of silver, and Morgan dollars began production in earnest.

Something New: Trade Dollars

The mining interests did get a compromise: the trade dollar. The silver lobby hoped it would provide an outlet for silver, and open trade with the Far East in competition with Spanish and Mexican dollars. The 1873 Act authorized trade dollars at a greater weight— 420 grains—versus the standard dollar’s 412.5 grains. Nearly the entire 1873 mintage went to China, where it was considered better than pesos, and widely chop marked in approval.

To benefit the silver lobby, the 1873 Act gave trade dollars domestic legal-tender status up to $5. When silver prices fell in 1876, this status was revoked. Values fell further, and abuses and misuses mounted. Mintages for circulation lasted until 1878, but proofs of the controversial coin were made through 1883. Walter Breen delicately called the Trade dollar “an expensive mistake—its motivation mere greed, its design a triumph of dullness, its domestic circulation and legal-tender status a disastrous provision of law leading only to ghastly abuses … its recall a long overdue but very mixed blessing, and its collection a source of decades of frustration.” Did he dislike it?

Nine Designs Unchanged

Coins that were continued by the Act of 1873 included the nickel three cent and five cent pieces, which had survived over their silver counterparts, and the Indian Head cent.

Retained also in the 1873 Act were all six denominations of gold coins. The Act had effectively placed the United States on the gold standard, in practice, if not in law. The U.S. did not officially adopt the gold standard until 1900, following years of debate. The 1896 and 1900 presidential elections focused on silver and gold, with victory going both times to the champion of gold, William McKinley. The debates are best remembered by the famous ‘cross of gold’ speech by William Jennings Bryan, the Democratic presidential nominee at the 1896 Democratic National Convention. In his impassioned plea for bimetallism, he expressed his hope, “You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.”

More Changes! The Close 3 / Open 3 Debacle

To add more flavors to an already rich coinage year, varieties in the 1873 date itself were created purposefully by the Mint. Dies had been made in late 1872 for all 1873 coins. But Chief Coiner Archibald Loudon Snowden complained that the final 3 digit in the date (now called the Close 3 or erroneously “Closed 3”) could easily be mistaken for an 8. Mint engravers under William Barber prepared new dies with a different (Open) 3 for all coins. The three new designs “with arrows” all received the Open 3 design. But the old dies were used to produce many Close 3 products, and in the end twelve coin designs struck at Philadelphia and two from San Francisco have
both Open and Close 3s.

In general, the newer Open 3 is more common than the Close 3 variety; the half dollar is a notable exception. Did the Mint know what effect this would have on future collectors?

“The Act” is Called “The Crime” and Leads to “The Panic”

The Coinage Act of 1873 changed the United States policy with respect to silver. Before the Act, the United States had backed its currency with both gold and silver, and it minted both types of coins. The Act moved the United States to a “de facto” gold standard.

The Act had the immediate effect of depressing silver prices. This hurt Western mining interests, who labeled the Act “The Crime of 1873.” The coinage law also reduced the domestic money supply, which hurt farmers and anyone else who carried heavy debt loads. The resulting outcry raised serious questions about how long the new policy would last. This perception of instability in United States monetary policy caused investors to shy away from long-term obligations, particularly long-term bonds.

In late 1873, the American economy entered a crisis. This followed a period of economic overexpansion that arose from an extended railroad boom. It came at the end of a series of economic setbacks that had started with the Black Friday panic of 1869, when Jay Gould tried to corner the gold market.

In September 1873, a major cornerstone of the U.S. banking establishment declared bankruptcy, setting off a chain reaction of bank failures and temporarily closing the New York stock market. Layoffs and depression followed, and panic was felt across the nation. This “Panic of 1873” led to business failures and labor tensions, leading to the Long Depression. See what a few changes to the coinage system can wreak?

The Result: an Array of 55 Varieties

The coinage output of 1873, summarized in the table on the adjacent page, included 17 different designs, plus three more varieties with arrows at date. The Open 3 and Close 3 varieties add 12 more to the list. If a collector wants a coin from each mint and Open/Close combination, 23 more are needed, for a total of 55 coins. But extensive melting of some issues at the branch mints render several issues unique, rare, or unknown to exist. All of this coinage chaos—criminal or not—left 1873 as one of the most colorful years in American numismatics.

Sources:

Bowers, Q. David. The Expert’s Guide to Collecting & Investing in Rare Coins. Whitman Publishing, Atlanta, 2006.

Breen, Walter. Water Breen’s Complete Encyclopedia of U.S. and Colonial Coins. Doubleday, New York. 1988.

Sumner, William Graham. The Crime
Of 1873 – The Forgotten Man and Other Essays. 1876. Website: The OnLine Library of Liberty at http://oll.libertyfund.org/

The History of United States Coins.
Website at http://www.coinsite.com/default.html

Yeoman, R. S. (edited by Kenneth
Bressett.) A Guide Book of United States Coins. Whitman Publishing, LLC. Atlanta, Georgia, 62nd Edition dated 2009.

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