Why The Lack Of 5th Century Roman Coins?

I think it is a combination of many things. Bad economic times, scarcer resources with the losses of Western cities, and extremely poor quality seem like worthy candidates to answer your question. To clarify poor quality: We know that Roman coinage declined both in quality (design and value) and metal content over the centuries where they continued to be watered down, if you know what I mean. The lesser-quality metal would have degraded more rapidly than the higher-quality metals used previously. I have hardly [i]ever[/] seen "premium high-grade" late Roman bronze coins, so this seems to validate the previous point.

The best thing I can compare it to is Zincoln cents. Regular copper Lincolns can still be found with dates from the late 50's and 60's in our everyday change. They still look great even for their age! However, Zincolns degrade at an incredible speed. It is a lot harder to find a nice example of, say, a 10 year old coin than it is a 50 year old coin. Make sense?

I think there must have been some sort of Roman World financial crisis. The Roman economy was a military economy, and when the Empire collapsed, so did trading.

Two centuries later, and Western Europe was in the Dark Ages, and coins from this period are very scarce or rare, because so little long distance trading was carried on. Charlemagne was the only reasonably bright light in a very dim period.

I have only one coin from this period: a bronze sceat of Eanred, of England, and a very diminutive coin it is too! I will try to collect ANY coin of this period.

I think long range trading and commerce must have been in significant decline, but also the agricultural part of the economy must have suffered less. The lack of coins seems to be the main real evidence that is still available to us. Coins were the 'oil' of the economy, such as existed at that time.

Today, we use electronic credit instead.

One shudders to think what will happen if and when electronic credit fails.

Like SAP, my last "Western" Empire coin is a Honorius AE4 from Aquileia in Italy, but I have a Theodosius II AE4 from Cyzicus and a Marcian AE4 from Constantinople. I'm inclined to think that the Western Empire fell apart rather quickly and fell into what we call the "Dark Ages" where the skills and innovations of the Romans were quickly forgotten to include coinage techniques and artistry.

JW

All good points, and nice coins guys. My last "ancient" Roman is a Theodosius I AE2 from Constantinople, so I'm looking forward to getting my first Honorius or Theodosius II or any other of the cheaper later emperors. But do you agree with the high prices for the really worn down poor condition coins of this period, like those of Valentinian III for example, or of the Germanic kingdoms? Because most of the coins from this time that I've seen look basically like pebbles and are going for upwards of $30, $40 all the way to $200, $250 (the cheapest I've seen are two Valentinian III's for around $22 each).