History of coins

History of coins

The history of coins extends from ancient times to the present, and is related to economic history, the history of minting technologies, the history shown by the images on coins, and the history of coin collecting. Coins are still widely used for monetary and other purposes.

All western histories of coins begin with their invention at some time slightly before or after 600 BC in Lydia. Since that time, coins have been the most universal embodiment of money. These first coins were made of electrum, a naturally occurring pale yellow mixture of gold and silver that was further alloyed with silver and copper.

Also, the Persian coins were very famous in the Persian and Sassanids era. There are lots of coins that have been found in Susa and in Ctesiphon.

The most famous and widely collected coins of antiquity are Roman coins and Greek coins.

The Byzantine Empire minted many coins ("see Byzantine currency"), including very thin gold coins bearing the image of the Christian cross and various Byzantine emperors.

A tomb of the Shang Dynasty dating back to the 11th century BC shows what may be the first cast copper money.

Some of the earlyest coins were beaten at the edges to imitate the shape of a cow, in indication of their value. Most coins are circular but some were rectangular.

Minting technologies

Coins were first made of scraps of metal.Ancient coins were produced through a process of hitting a hammer positioned over an anvil. The Chinese produced primarily cast coinage. Relatively few non-Chinese cast coins were produced by governments, however it was a common practice amongst counterfeiters. Since the early 1700s, presses have been used, beginning with screw presses and progressing in the 1800s towards steam driven presses. Recently modern minting techniques involving electric and hydraulic presses have been more commonly employed.

ee also

*Coinage metals
*Currency
*Numismatics

External links

* [http://worldcoingallery.com/ World Coin Gallery] - Self-proclaimed largest coin site in the world, with over 10,000 coins
* [http://rg.ancients.info/lion/article.html World's First Coin] The Lydian Lion
* [http://sodo.cool.ne.jp 中国古銭譜] ("Chinese old coins directory", site in Japanese with texts and photos of many Chinese, Japanese, Korean&Vietnamese old coins)
* [http://www.cbpmc.com.cn/qbjs/index.jsp 中国造币--钱币鉴赏] ("Chinese made coins-seeing coins", site in Simplified Chinese about Chinese coins)
* [http://www.greekandromancoins.com/downloads.php Ancient Greek Coins: Free Coin Organizer]
* [http://www.buntetsu.net/mbc/coin.html Museum of Bank notes and Coins] (in Japanese)


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