Counterfeit coinage of the Holy Roman Empire in the 16th century: silvering process and archaeometallurgical replications

Lucile Beck (1) , Elise Alloin (2) , Anne Michelin (3) , Florian Téreygeol (4, 5, 6) , Claire Berthier (7) , Dominique Robcis (8) , Thierry Borel (8) , Ulrich Klein (9)

1 SRMP - Service de recherches de métallurgie physique
2 PAIR - Pôle d'Archéologie Interdépartemental Rhénan
3 CRCC - Centre de Recherche pour la Conservation des Collections
4 LAPA - UMR 3685 - Laboratoire Archéomatériaux et Prévision de l'Altération
5 IRAMAT - LMC - IRAMAT - Laboratoire Métallurgies et Cultures
6 IRAMAT - Institut de Recherches sur les Archéomatériaux
7 INSTN - Institut National des Sciences et Techniques Nucléaires
8 C2RMF - Centre de recherche et de restauration des musées de France
9 Cabinet des médailles

The Preuschdorf coin hoard, found in the Alsace, offered the opportunity to study silver-plated coins from the 16th to 17th century AD. 36 silvered coins have been studied and two silvering processes have been found: amalgam silvering for 44 % of the coins and a thin layer of pure silver for 56 % of the coins. The majority of the coins silvered with mercury were struck in Palatinate whereas those with pure silver come from the city of St. Gallen in Switzerland. In order to confirm these technologies, replications have been undertaken at the archaeological experimental platform in Melle (Deux Sèvres, France). The combination of the observation of non-restored coins and of the replication production gives a good representation of the silvering processes used in the Holy Roman Empire in the 16th century for producing counterfeit coins

Domains: Material chemistry

Lucile Beck, Elise Alloin, Anne Michelin, Florian Téreygeol, Claire Berthier, et al.. Counterfeit coinage of the Holy Roman Empire in the 16th century: silvering process and archaeometallurgical replications. Archaeometallurgy in Europe III, 2015, Bochum, Germany. ⟨cea-02368846⟩