But there is a difference between Billon coins, and coins with a set low amount of silver though isn't there?
My understanding was that Billon had a silver content but it was flexible amount so they could alter it according to the silver price. So if they silver price went up one year the coins might be minted in 30% silver to have the right amount of silver value, if it went down the next year they might be minted in 45% silver to make up the difference in silver value.
However there were some coins that had a set amount of silver and it was the same every year, I'm thinking of the Sweden/Norway coins that had a set amount of 40% silver every year.
Even if I'm wrong about that I would still rather see the amount of silver listed if it is known, rather than generic labeling of every coin with less than 50% as Billon. There's a big difference in silver content between a 10% Mexican Peso and a 40% Swedish Krona.
Billon should be listed in the database same as Silver. Usually its somthing with a silver content at or below (.350). If the amount of silver content is known it will be marked the same as it would be with a higher silver content coin.
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Yeah, and I think the reason it's not known a lot of the time was because the amount of silver was varied depending on the silver price. Say you're making an early Swiss 20 rappen coin and legally it legally needs to have 10 rappens worth of silver in it (speaking hypothetically) If one year the silver price is high, they don't need to put in as much silver to get 10 rappens worth so the coin may have 25% silver. Another year the silver price might be low and they needed to put in more to get 10 rappens worth so the coins minted that year might have 40% silver. I think that's basically how it worked.
The is no exact defined silver content set for naming a coin billon.
Billon is just a low silver content object.
Most experts start to use this term for silver content values of 20-35% and lower.
We could create a Numista value and use it for example for all coins with silver content of 30% and lower.
It would then be listed as
Billon (.245) for example.
It should however still show silver content value as well as be listed as silver coin in the your collection.
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But to do this you would need to go through the entire catalogue and change everything for consistency so people can get a reliable search, and you would need to make sure everyone entered it exactly the same. This is the reason why I suggested we have a drop-down box for selecting the metal of coins, that way you know everyone is entering it the same.
Xavier mentioned on my suggestion to have a drop-down box for metals that if the exact composition of a coin is known then he would prefer to have it all listed so the description is as accurate as possible. I disagreed saying for ease of searching we should simplify and have just generic terms like Bronze, brass, etc. But I guess since he's in charge that his word stands. Here is my original topic
https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces9948.html