Barbarian imitations

Barbaric imitations are, as a rule, very imperfect technical copies of antique coins. The key “barbaric” coins were gold shilling and silver denarius . The first is the Germanized name of the Roman and Byzantine solid , which became the prototype of shilling. The prototype of the second is silver siliqua , whose value was expressed in countable denarii . The “barbaric” silicas began to be minted from the time of the Merovingians (481–751), receiving local names: denier , danaro ( denaro ), dinero , dinero ( dineiro ), dinar ^{[4] [2] [3] [5] [6] [ 7] [8] [9]} .

Showing a close connection between trading coins and imitations, Alexander Zograf writes:

Silver Byzantine Millarisium (I half of the VIII century)

Copper coin of the Principality of Tmutarakan (X — XII centuries)

The appearance of the minting of such imitations should, apparently, be represented as follows. Penetrating through the means of visiting merchants to the tribes neighboring the borders of the Hellenistic kingdoms or the Roman Empire, which are at a lower level of economic development and do not have their own coins, any coins that were abundantly minted and widely used, such as the Atrad tetrachms or the staters and tetrachrames of the Hellenistic monarchs, these tribes quickly become a favorite means of money circulation. This causes a systematic importation of these coins to the indicated tribes in order to maintain trade relations with them. If in the future the flow of these coins is interrupted, whether due to the termination of their minting or due to the closure of the paths they penetrated, the local market, having managed to get used to a new convenient means of money circulation, imperatively requires filling the gap. The only way to adequately respond to these pressing consumer demands is whether attempts by the tribal authorities or, on the private initiative of artisans, to produce coins by their imperfect means according to the pattern of those established in local circulation. Naturally, even in the first examples of such imitations, errors were found in the inscriptions and incorrect transmission of incomprehensible details of the image. In the future, thanks to the sequential copying of ineptly executed images by other equally inept masters, the types of coins are perverted beyond recognition. There are also cases when various details of the image are interpreted in a new way: the tails of animals become bird's necks with heads, locks of hair turn into animals or birds ... horses get wings or human heads ... On the one hand, the rough and careless, artisanal character of these imitations, quick weight loss and deterioration in the quality of the metal raises the suspicion that these coins are the products of dexterous and irresponsible private entrepreneurs, supplying the market with far from always benign surrogates Tami which had become habitual means of monetary circulation. On the other hand, not so often, but still similar imitations with the names of tribal leaders or kings attested in historical sources ... make us see in them official banknotes issued by the communal authorities.

- Zograf A.N. Antique coins. - S. 101

On the territory of the Old Russian State , numerous finds of Byzantine solidi are known, which in the X-XI centuries became the prototype for the minting of the first Russian coins - the so-called gold medalists and silver pieces . In imitation of the militarism found in the treasures of that time, coins were minted in the Principality of Tmutarakan .

Usually the quality of execution of one of the pieces of silver by Yaroslav the Wise , minted at the beginning of the 11th century in Novgorod, attracts attention. The mastery of the execution of the stamp of the coin and its subsequent minting sometimes even arouse suspicions that this is a later fake. However, it was proved that this coin was precisely the Novgorod coinage ^{[10] [11]} .

• Zograf A.N. Antique coins / Materials and research on archeology of the USSR. - Vol. 16. - M. — L .: Publishing house of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, 1951.
• Mattingly G. Coins of Rome. From ancient times until the fall of the Western Empire. - M .: Collector's Books, 2005. - ISBN 1-932525-37-8 .
• Spassky I.G. Russian monetary system. Place and importance of the Russian monetary system in the global monetary economy . - L. , 1962.
• Numismatic Dictionary / [Author: Zvarich VV ]. - 4th ed .. - Lviv: Higher school, 1980.
• Dictionary of numismatists / [Authors: Fengler H., Girow G., Unger V.] / Per. with him. M. G. Arsenyeva / Resp. ed. V.M. Potin. - 2nd ed., Revised. and additional .. - M .: Radio and communications, 1993. - ISBN 5-256-00317-8 .