Strymon/Trident

[cavaros]

Strymon/Trident bronze coinage:

https://www.academia.edu/6355583/Celtic_Strymon_Trident_Coinage

[Figleaf]

Once again, highly interesting, cavaros. One aspect is the ongoing robbery of museum treasures we have discussed before. A painful issue.

The other aspect is that the Celts used overstriking as a technique. The great advantage of overstriking over re-melting is speed. There are some disadvantages, notably having to accept the standards (weight, metal content) of the overstruck coins. This can be mitigated by proclaiming a higher value for the overstruck coins, but that would lead to forgeries (the most abstract of these coins may in that case be contemporary counterfeits).

But suppose speed was important. In that case, the new money would have been put into circulation quickly. That would have caused significant inflation and that is the opposite of what you call "a controlled economic/monetary system" in your first paragraph.

Peter

[cavaros]

I think 'controlled' may be a little generous. We cannot judge such an entity by modern or even Roman standards. Most of the economy would still have been based on barter. Anyway, if inflation out of hand, they could always raid Macedonia again ...

[Figleaf]

And you think you are joking... In north-western Europe, huge Celtic coins hoards were found that were evidently temple treasures. Think about it. Offers to the gods were constantly distracting silver from circulation while new silver was scarce. There is an end to Roman silver objects you can cut to pieces. So where is the metal for new coins coming from? Raids on tribes of different persuasion.

The beauty of the English language combined with the flexibility of economic theory (or was it the other way around?) Inflation works with barter, trade by silver weight and simple economies also. Say a tribe has 1000 coins and the price of a new sword is either 20 coins (you can also put that as ∂ grams of silver) or two shovels. Now double the number of coins they have, due to a successful raid. You will see that a sword will still be two shovels, but the alternative will be 40 coins (2∂ grams of silver), not 20. Coins are just another commodity and when supply increases, their value diminishes. An opportunity for inter-tribal merchants...

However, my real question is: why overstrike, rather than re-melt the coins? Threat of war? Lack of technology? Nomadic life that didn't support fixed installations for melting? Untrained slave labour surplus capacity?

Peter

[cavaros]

I think in this case we shouldn't over complicate the situation. The tribes in the western Rhodope mountains/Stryma Valley area, unlike Celtic tribes in other parts of Thrace, had not minted their own coins until this point, apparently being content to use the Greek issues.
After the fall of Macedonia, the decision to overstrike, rather than mint new coinage, is probably due to a lack of technology in combination with the conflict conditions which pertained in this area at the time. With the Strymon/Trident coins, as with the Thasos issues, they appear to have been content to continue to use the Greek/Roman coins, as long as the classical images on them were 'erased'.