The Treasure Hunt of an Antique Dealer

It's good to have a shoulder to rely on, but the terrain is too high. If you continue to blow the cold wind against the window like this, Zhang Nan will have to worry about whether he and Xiao Nizi will get a cold.

The scenery is almost the same, so let's withdraw!

Go downstairs, not far away, and walk to the location of the old castle ruins.

Charlize Theron saw that Manager Wang was still holding a cleaned silver bar, and asked Zhang Nan: "You don't mean that ancient cultural relics should not be over-cleaned. Why are they all burned this time?"

In the morning, she was awakened by Zhang Nan’s "bang-bang" knock on the door, and then she drew herself out of the room. When she saw that he was directing a worker to burn something with a blowtorch, she approached and found out that it was That is a silver bar.

Buried in the ground for a long time, the silver bars are like iron bars, and they light up as soon as they burn: Wang Fangming took two out of the basement and gave them to Zhang Nan yesterday.

The two silver bars are similar in shape and size, and each weighs about 250 grams.

There was no mark on it, but it was a bit ugly. I used an axe and other tools to cut out a few large cuts of different depths. This kind of situation is very rare in the ancient silver bars of China.

Zhang Nan told her that this is the silver bar made in this nearby area, and it should be between the 13th and 14th centuries, because after the 14th century, no country in Europe used such a trade exchange.

Could it be that later European tyrants had the habit of collecting silver raw materials?

No, this is the silver bar as currency, because it has been chopped by a knife or an axe.

Beginning in the 13th century, the amount of silver mining in Europe increased significantly, and many new silver mines were discovered.

At the same time, the most famous Italian in the business team at that time discovered a big problem: it is getting harder and harder to do business only with the original currencies that are already popular in European trade, and there are constant troubles!

The reason is that the monetary system cannot keep up with the economic development. The increase in the supply of precious metals has brought about a general rise in the price of goods, and the purchasing power of even full-value currencies is also declining.

On the other hand, the fineness of the various trading currencies that were popular in the European continent at that time was deteriorating, because the precious metal coins would wear out during the circulation process, and generally have to be recast every half a century.

It is logical to add new gold or silver when refurbishing the casting, but at that time the authorities in various countries were not so honest. They would not use their own gold and silver to make up for other people and historical reasons, which caused currency wear and tear. .

what to do?

It's smart to add relatively cheap copper to gold and silver coins when recasting.

It is reasonable for Westerners to call the Dark Ages in the Middle Ages. Other than that, the issue of money is a mess: by the 13th century, the real content of gold and silver in the hundreds of gold and silver coins circulating in these countries was fast. Gone, it's almost the same as calling it a copper coin!

"...At that time, Italian merchants had to think of using expensive spice pepper as trade payment instead of precious metal coins.

It was really overwhelming. It was like a silver coin called Denier, which had been in large-scale circulation in Europe for hundreds of years, and it was minted and recast in many countries.

A'standard' Denier coin should theoretically contain 1.2 to 1.4 grams of silver, but by the 13th century, the best Denier coin on the Italian market contained at most 0.25 grams of silver, which is extremely large. Part of it is already copper, so it can't be called a silver coin.

At that time, the number of coins used to do larger business was scary. There was no way. Those merchants came up with silver ingots or silver bars with a unit weight of marks as exchange items. One silver bar is equivalent to more than 2,400 denières. . "

At that time Charlize Theron also asked a question: "Mark is a unit of weight?

How heavy? "

He is a South African, but he hasn’t studied European ancient history, even more so when he arrived in the United States: there is an older brother who has a private collection of cultural relics that is too numerous to count. She really doesn’t have much interest in history lessons. Just go home and listen to your brother. .

Besides, there are two real history experts in the manor, and their level is higher than that of the history teacher in the school-she is only interested in what she likes, and she doesn't catch a cold with textbooks.

"The ancient European currency measurement unit was equivalent to 8 troy ounces of pure silver at the beginning, which is now 249 grams, and later evolved into half a pound.

At the beginning, the whole Western Europe used the'mark' as a unit of currency. After the King of England, Richard the Lionheart, was captured in Germany in 1192, he was released after paying a ransom of 150,000 marks to the Holy Roman Empire, which is almost equivalent to the current thirty. Seven and a half tons of silver.

However, the weight of this mark has changed in various parts of Europe. For example, the Viennese mark is about 280 grams, the Prussian mark is more than 233 grams, and the Portuguese and Spanish marks are 230 grams.

These silver bars should all be considered as one mark, and burn it to see the approximate purity, besides, don’t they still have it underneath. "

Zhang Nan had another idea at the time: I don’t know if the Europeans at the time were stupid~www.wuxiaspot.com~ or they were too shrewd-silver bars or silver ingots of the size of China would definitely indicate the casting time on the top, Who is the casting party, and the approximate purity is indispensable.

The ancients in the West allowed silver bars to be bare, and maliciously guessed that the purity was not enough to be foolish, or the whole European world was doing it!

Bad enough!

Well-intentioned guess...

A bunch of silly, simple engraving methods are not needed, and every transaction deserves to worry about receiving inferior currency or even encountering fakes.

"There are so many big holes on this, and the good silver bars make it so ugly."

Xiao Nizi is an aesthetic expert, and she is very repulsive of all ugly precious metal products. The two silver bars look like a dog chewed on them.

Zhang Nan smiled: "I use a blowtorch in the construction site. The surface of silver will oxidize over a long time, and it will become faster when it touches salt and acid.

It turns white when burned. I think the silver content of these silver bars exceeds 90%. They should be high-quality silver bars produced in southern Germany, Bohemia or Hungary.

Seven or eight hundred years ago, merchants did not have a blowtorch, and it was inconvenient to find a blacksmith. What would be the easiest way to check the purity of silver bars? "

Charlie is not a fool, and immediately understood why there are so many "dog teeth" on these silver bars.

"Haha" smiled, "slash it."

By the way, this was how merchants in the Middle Ages inspected silver bars and ingots with severely discolored surfaces.

The weight will become lighter with one scrape, but the loss of a knife or an axe is basically negligible. Although a silver bar may need to be cut for several years, or even decades, because the silver will not change color in a short time.

But over time, these one-mark silver bars used as currency have basically become "dog teeth."