"Electrum" is a vague term, without a robust, technical definition, other than "gold that has been debased with silver". The word is kind of analogous to the word "billon", meaning "very debased silver". There isn't a robust, technical definition for "billon" either, but it is often used in situations where the actual intended fineness is either unknown or it actually varies considerably from coin to coin.
Thus, the Mexican pesos of the 1960s that were .100 fine silver, or the American "
War Nickels" (.350 fine silver) are almost never called "billon", even though they are very debased silver, because the fineness is known and consistent at those levels.
For these Japanese coins, I suspect the problem is threefold:
- The gold is debased with a mixture of silver and copper, not just silver as would be expected for "electrum"
- While the standard of fineness varied greatly within the series, for each specific type and variety, the fineness was quite tightly controlled.
- Coin collecting is quite popular in Japan, so the terminology used is, in all likelihood, Japanese terminology that has been translated into English, rather than an English terminology that has been forced onto Japanese numismatics. So, we call them "gold" because collectors in Japan have always called them "gold".
Don't say "infinitely" when you mean "very"; otherwise, you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite. - C. S. Lewis
Posted 08/03/2016 3:32 pm
