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ANCIENT COINS

Ancient Coins

Long before newspapers, television or the internet, coins were the primary source for rulers and governments to communicate to the masses.  What better way to carry your message than on an object that every hand will touch?  Coins promoted state-sponsored religious beliefs, propaganda messages, and the promotion of a ruler.  The majority of metals used were silver, bronze and copper.  The rarity and cost of gold made coins struck in that metal to be worth too much for most everyday trade between the average person. 

The earliest coins are came from the kingdom of Lydia of Iron Age Anatolia, and date to the late 7th century BC.  These small crude minted coins were made of electrum, an alluvial alloy of gold and silver, varying wildly in proportion, and usually about 40–55% gold.  These early Lydian coins had no writing and only an image of an animal.  Because of this, dating these coins relies mostly on archaeological excavations from the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, in present day Turkey.  This was the site of the earliest known deposit of electrum coins.  These coins were not used for everyday trade, though.  Even the smallest-denomination electrum coins would have been too valuable for purchasing individual goods for subsistence.  It is believed the first coins used in typical consumer retail trade on a large-scale basis were Greek silver coins, mostly the small silver fractions such as the hemiobol, minted by the Ionian Greeks in the late 6th century BC.

Coins spread rapidly in the 6th and 5th centuries BC, leading to the development of ancient Greek and Achaemenid coinage, and further to Illyrian coinage.  In India, the Karshapana was the earliest punch-marked coin, produced from at least the mid-4th century BC, and possibly as early as 575 BC.  In China, early round coins appeared in the 4th century BC and were adopted for all China by Emperor Qin Shi Huang Di at the end of 3rd century BC.

The Classical period saw Greek coinage reach a high level of technical and aesthetic quality.  The Hellenistic period kingdoms were much larger and wealthier than the Greek city states of the Classical period.  These coins, being more mass-produced and larger, usually lacked the aesthetic delicacy of coins of the earlier period.  Nevertheless, some of the Greco-Bactrian coins, and their successors in India, the Indo-Greeks, are considered the finest examples of Greek numismatic art with "a nice blend of realism and idealization", including the largest coins to be minted in the Hellenistic world.

Coins came late to the Roman Republic compared with the rest of the Mediterranean.  The manufacture of coins in the Roman culture, dating from about the 4th century BC, significantly influenced later development of coin minting in Europe.  Roman currency consisted of gold, silver, bronze, orichalcum (a type of high quality brass) and copper coinage.  From its introduction during the Republic through Imperial times, Roman currency saw many changes in form, denomination, and composition.  A feature was the inflationary debasement and replacement of coins over the centuries.  This trend continued with Byzantine currency.  The Byzantine Empire established and operated several mints throughout its history (330–1453 AD), until their conquest by the Ottoman Turks in the mid-15th century.

Since ancient coins were hand struck from varying hand-engraved dies, no two coins are exactly alike.  Each coin is unto itself, a unique image of ancient art and history!   This uniqueness of ancient coins goes further in the variety of patinas and colors they develop over a thousand years.  These colors can widely vary and often are considered prized natural enhancements, beautifying the coin and raising its collector value.