133BC Roman Denarius
Good morning and welcome to the August 9th edition of a Top Shelf Thursday! Today already feels like a Vodka Martini - of course, stirred, not shaken - kinda day. Talking about stirring… this morning, let’s stir things up a bit and look at something really old. So let’s refill our cups, pull up a chair, and let’s discover a bit of history in a 2,151 years old coin. The Allman Brothers greet me this morning with their 1973 hit, Ramblin’ Man.
Gold is currently up +$0.20 this morning at $1,213.70.
Silver is currently up +$0.01 at $15.41.
Platinum is currently up +$3 at $833.
Palladium is currently down -$5.00 at $888.
Precious metals are still down 1% for the month. We’ll see the CoT Report later today and report on it in tomorrow’s blog.
Before I begin sharing what I’ve learned about this ancient coin, I want to ask you if you’re tired of the politicians, political pundits, and news agencies with their bickering, biting, and backstabbing? The reason I ask is in doing research into this 133BC Roman Denarius, I find the Roman Empire to be what I’d call “Washington DC on Steroids.” It’s easy to look back romantically at an earlier time, but the realities are far from that. Rome came into being by conquering land and their purpose for existence continued to be world domination until the Germanic people fought back and overthrew the empire.
The Roman Denarius became the standard Roman silver coin when it was introduced around 267BC and it maintained its value and use until approximately 313AD (BCE). To appreciate its importance and longevity, consider that traditionally, the myth of Romulus founding Rome is said to have occurred somewhere between 753-509BC; however, the idea of an empire where the city-states worked together with a common legislative body and Caesar didn’t happen until the 3rd century BC or around 280BC and continued to its fall in 476BCE. That’s still 750 years and the silver denarius was the “Favored Coin of the Empire” for 580 of those years!
And even when the Denarius was no longer a regular issue, it has continued to be a major influence throughout Europe and the Middle East. Even today, the Arab world issues gold dinar, a British penny used the “d” as an abbreviation, in France you had the denier, in Serbia and Yugoslavia the dinar, in Spain and Portugal the dinero and dinheiro, and in Italy the denaro.
As I’ve said before, it’s always difficult to compare values of early coins to today’s values simply because the products and services available are so different today. Historians believe that a legionary of the early republic (to 27BC) was paid 112.5 denarii per year or 0.3 per day. So the coin pictured could have been three-days wages.
The silver Denarius of 133BC weighed 60 grains (3.9g) and was +90% silver. The coin was debased at least eight times during its history ending at 50 grains (3.41g) and only 5% silver.
The Denarius struck in its earlier years such as this one have a relief of Roma wearing a helmet on the obverse and have Jupiter driving a galloping quadriga on the reverse. Later Denarius were struck with the likeness of the appropriate Caesar.
If you want to see or purchase this or any of the other featured coins, visit us at David Douglas Diamonds & Jewelry. Well, I’ll let that be it for today. Go out there and make a difference! See ya later!
*Disclaimer: Precious Metal Musings™ is written for entertainment and news purposes only and should not be used in making purchases and/or sales of precious metals.