Debasement
practice of lowering the value of currency; financial gain for the sovereign at the expense of citizens
A debasement of coinage is the practice of lowering the intrinsic value of coins, especially when used in connection with commodity money, such as gold or silver coins, while continuing to circulate them at face value. A coin is said to be debased if the quantity of gold, silver, copper or nickel in the coin is reduced.
Examples
Roman Empire
In Roman currency, the value of the denarius was gradually decreased over time as the Roman government altered both the size and the silver content of the coin. Originally, the silver used was nearly pure, weighing about 4.5 grams. From time to time, this was reduced. During the Julio-Claudian dynasty, the denarius contained approximately 4 grams of silver, and then was reduced to 3.8 grams under Nero. The denarius continued to shrink in size and purity, until by the second half of the third century, it was only about 2% silver, and was replaced by the Argenteus.
Ottoman Empire
Weight of akçe in grams of silver and index.
Siam and Thailand
Silver was used extensively in Siamese currency from the medieval period until the 20th century. The baht originated as a traditional unit of weight and early Siamese photduang, or bullet money, consisted largely of silver.
The public source identifies “Debasement” as practice of lowering the value of currency; financial gain for the sovereign at the expense of citizens. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Debasement, practice and lowering.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 31, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q206735. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Debasement” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.