Coinage never disappeared, but it became less common, at least in some times and places, and certainly almost disappeared from the lives of peasants. Again, as archaeology proceeds, we are constantly finding new hoards of coins and get a more optimistic sense of the availability of money. The Byzantines never stopped producing a reliable gold currency, the solidus, and the Arab world produced silver and gold coinage. The Frankish kings in the west produced some gold coinage down to the 700s, but Charlemagne's economic reforms toward the end of the eighth century made a silver solidus the basis of the currency.