What Is Hacksilver?

Silver has always been valuable as a unit of exchange, but it would be wrong to assume silver was always in the form of coins or small (or large) bars. It might be shaped into bracelets or chains or other items, such as a decorative pin or brooch, etc.

Those who wanted silver—for themselves or to trade—did not always need a pin or a bracelet, however. Sometimes it was only necessary to have enough silver of sufficient value to exchange for what you wanted. If the item you wished to purchase was worth less silver than the weight of the silver item in your hand, what would you do? Simple: you would hack off the amount you need.

Hacksilver (from German "hacksilber," meaning exactly what it looks like) refers to pieces of silver that are incomplete, hacked from a larger chunk or finished item, or simply from a time prior to coin-making becoming the norm. The picture above comes from the British Museum, and if you care to click this link, you can see close-ups of many pieces of hacksilver and their sizes.

Picts and Vikings collected—through pillaging, but also through trade—hacksilver—it was easier than finding and mining and smelting ore on their own, and some of the largest hoards of hacksilver are connected to those groups. The Traprain Law Treasure (Traprain holds an ancient hill fort in Scotland), found in 1919, contains 53 pounds of Late Roman silver tableware, all of high quality silver and all sliced up into smaller pieces. It was either given by Romans to Picts, or taken by Picts and stashed underground.

Hacksilver was not just a Pictish and Viking trend; silver was considered valuable long before it was turned into coins. What was Southern Phoenicia has produced several hoards of hacksilver dating as far back as 1200BCE. The collection of these sites is known as the Cisjordan Corpus. The silver came from Sardinia and Spain, showing that there was trade across the length of the Mediterranean a very long time ago.

Here's some interesting trivia: the Russian unit of currency, the ruble, is derived from the verb "rubit" (рубить), meaning "to chop." Hacksilver is a well-known concept in a popular computer game series.

Speaking of huge collections of valuable metals tucked away long ago and found in modern times, let's go treasure hunting and look at some hoards, starting with the Vale of York Hoard.