At what point do we call a coins composition as "billon"?
Wikipedia..... Billon is an alloy of a precious metal (most commonly silver, but also gold) with a majority base metal content (such as copper). It is used chiefly for making coins, medals, and token coins.
The word comes from the French bille, which means "log".[1]
I just purchased a German States coin with a silver composition of 0.333 silver. https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces47564.html
Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the accuracy. But, it does make it difficult to research coins using our database (or any database for that matter).
Your thoughts?
It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure, that just ain't so. Mark Twain
I would personally add them as silver if the fineness is known. If the fineness is unknown, they should be added as billon.
I would prefer the option to add the fineness of Billon, (E.g. Billon .200) and have the melt value listed at the bottom of the page. I assume that won't happen, as somebody would find that unreasonable.
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Revisor de Numista para monedas de CRI, GTM, HND, NIC, PAN y SLV.
In some of the places I collect, there were specifications for a set of denominations ranging from, say, 0.600 down to 0.250 silver. Then there were separate specifications for denominations even lower in silver content (to less than 0.100). The first are called silver and the second billon. Because of how those specs were written, and not because of an arbitrary definition in a dictionary 500 years later.
This is one area where it will always be messy in my opinion, but at least we can understand why.
Citation: "Some_Nerd"I would personally add them as silver if the fineness is known. If the fineness is unknown, they should be added as billon.
I would prefer the option to add the fineness of Billon, (E.g. Billon .200) and have the melt value listed at the bottom of the page. I assume that won't happen, as somebody would find that unreasonable.
Is it not theoretically possible to determine the purity of any coin that has even a slight amount of silver?
... and the last comment from that thread is the same as my comment here. Sure, we could make an arbitrary choice, but it would bear no relation to how these things were seen one, two or 5 centuries ago.
That thread also mentions that if the fineness is known, but the coin is commonly referred to as billon, the fineness can still be included in that field.
Citation: "Mr. Midnight"At least, I think, we agree it means a minority of silver in the composition, ie, Ag<50%
id this is the case i truly feel bad for the mods who if so needs to redo thousends if not tens of thousends of entries in numista to follow a nee set definition.
personally as i see it aslong as we have nothing else to go by calling it billon works if we have a purity we should use that given its not refered to as anything elsewhere
Ahoj.
This definition: ,,is that the majority is the majority metal and the minority is the precious metal,, -percentages cannot be determined
Something else is a period currency ruled by the ruler with a precious metal content specified, at the beginning of production. As a rule, he always secretly insisted on reducing the precious metal and inflation. ( rulers don't change just looking for me what isn't)
- So, in my opinion, the 0/333 coin can be silver.
- and coins 0/400 ( Ag) can be - billon
( grains of silver counted five thousand years ago- good purchase and exchange for goods ,, well don't buy it ,,)
Ivan
