Currencies

[Razzoriel]

Not sure what happened as I typed a reply and then it disappeared!

Barbaric coins were not valued less than "official" coins. Almost all late Roman hoards I am aware of contain many, many contemporary "Barbaric" imitations, so clearly the common man didn't care. The inflation was so high and the quality control so low that many late coins (Constantine and later) vary greatly in size, weight and strike. In fact we don't even know the name of those coins simply calling them by their size (AE 1, AE 2...).

Earlier, especially in the first century larger "barbaric" denominations were even counter marked making them official. Lots of "unofficial" Dupondii and Sestertii of Augustus and Claudius have been found counter-marked. As long as it was within the standard of the time it was good.

What does happen is hoarding of older silver denarii when the Antoninianus was introduced. It also happened during the monetary reforms of Nero who debased the denarius. Eventually the mint didn't even bother to put a silver wash on the coins as everyone knew they weren't silver. However gold remained at high purity for both the aureus and the later solidus, semisis and tremisis. These are often found with minimal circulation wear since they were not used for everyday transactions. The average person would be using small bronze coins.

Okay, so bronze coins were used by commoners. Which one was used more commonly? So far, I've seen the Follis, Sestertius, As and Solii.

If Denarii were debased, but were the most common coin around before Nero's and Diocletian currency reforms, would they still be in circulation?