Overstriking in the Greek world: an overview on the full landscape and an explanation for punctual occurrences with silver coinage

• François de Callataÿ ^[1]
  1. [1] Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes

     Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes

     París, Francia

     
• Localización: Revue belge de numismatique et de sigillographie, ISSN 0774-5885, Nº. 164, 2018, págs. 24-57
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • In 2013, David MacDonald and I decided to build a database for all overstrikes of the Greek world at large. Entitled GOD (Greek Overstrikes Database), this database amounts in its current state to 1,646 coins (4 for gold, 913 for silver and 729 for bronze). This paper aims to give for the first time a full and quantified overview of the phenomenon. It makes a distinction between silver and bronze. For silver, overstrikes – a rare phenomenon in itself – are usually highly concentrated at certain points in the sequence. It can be demonstrated that these overstrikes were unprofitable for the mint master, and only occured when he was unable to produce the right number of coins with the allotted metal. Cases of massive overstrikes for silver may be described as triply marginal in terms of quantity (they are extremely rare and mostly small scale), chronology (they are generally late), and geography (they are generally far from continental Greece). Cases of substantial overstrikes are more numerous for bronze, many of which were likely carried out to achieve a financial benefit through revaluations. As with silver, overstrikes for bronze appear on the whole to be a rare and mostly peripheral phenomenon. In addition, there is a significant difference of geographical distribution between the 4th and 3rd c. on the one hand, and the 1st c. on the other (with almost nothing for the 2nd c.).