The Freeman 1972 - The Ludwig von Mises Institute

538 THE FREEMAN Septemberseldom find specimens with cutsto test the authenticity of thepieces; forgeries of them wereevidently rare. Hoards of themhave been found as far away asScandinavia. Although we haveno exact mint records from theByzantine Empire, the mintage ofthe solidus was certainly enormous.As late as about 1950, common,worn solidi could be had foras little as about $12., not muchmore than twice their bullionvalue. sAfter the decline of the solidusin the later medieval period it wassupplanted by several importantItalian, Hungarian and Germanseries. Florence struck the fiorinod'oro (gold florin) beginning withthe year 1252. It was imitated ina land with big gold mines, Hungary,in the 14th century andlater. In Germany and the Netherlands,in turn, large quantities offlorins were struck in the 15th8 To illustrate the constancy of thesolidus, specimens in the author's collectionweigh as follows: A solidusstruck in Milan under Honorius (395-423A.D.) weighs 4.47 grams with a specificgravity of about 18. A lightly circulatedspecimen of Constantine VIII (1025­1028) with an inspiring portrait of Christweighs 4.37 grams with a specific gravityof a bit less than 19, nearly pure gold. Inthe subsequent decades the weight andfineness of the solidus declined sharply,but Byzantine gold coinage persisted intothe 14th century. For a detailed analysisof the debasement of the solidus in theeleventh century, see Byzantinische Zeitschrift,1954, pp. 379-394.and early 16th centuries, but theydeclined in weight and finenesswhen the German gold mines beganto be so badly depleted thatthe gold became too dear in relationto the huge supplies of silverflowing from Saxony and Bohemia.(The first large-scale coinageof the predecessor of the silverdollar was done in Saxony,1500 if.) The Rhenish gold florinwas struck in enormous quantitiesin such towns as Frankfurt, Cologne,Nuremberg and Utrecht. Aquarter million of them werestruck in 1418 in Frankfurt aloneand· Basel struck 126,020 duringthe years 1434-5.The Gold DucatOn 31 October, 1284, the MaggiorConsiglio of Venice decidedto mint the gold ducat, one of themost important gold coins of alltimes. It is still being struck fromdies dated 1915 in the ViennaMint nearly 700 years later. InVenice itself, the ducat was struckwith the same design (St. Markand Doge) down to the end of the18th century. The ducat weightand fineness became a favorite inGermany, the Netherlands, Poland,Scandinavia and Russia. Itwas even crudely imitated as faraway as India, where the Venetianoriginals were also in use.England, France, Spain andPortugal had many gold coinages