What use is a coin in this day and age? Historians like Dr Rory Naismith find them exceedingly useful. 💰 👛 For example, historians have theorised that bullion from the Byzantine Empire fuelled Europe’s revolutionary adoption of silver coins in the mid-seventh century. Now laser ablation analysis on surviving Anglo-Saxon silver 'pennies' has provided scientific proof that this was the case. This broke England's reliance on gold and ushered in a new style of money that would last for a millennia