Coin - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

A coin is a piece of hard material that is standardized in weight, is produced in large quantities in order to facilitate trade, and primarily can be used as a legal tender

Legal tender

Legal tender is a medium of payment allowed by law or recognized by a legal system to be valid for meeting a financial obligation. Paper currency is a common form of legal tender in many countries....

token for commerce in the designated country, region, or territory.

Coins are usually metal

Metal

A metal , is an element, compound, or alloy that is a good conductor of both electricity and heat. Metals are usually malleable and shiny, that is they reflect most of incident light...

or a metallic material and sometimes made of synthetic materials, usually in the shape of a disc

Disk (mathematics)

In geometry, a disk is the region in a plane bounded by a circle.A disk is said to be closed or open according to whether or not it contains the circle that constitutes its boundary...

, and most often issued by a government. Coins are used as a form of money

Money

Money is any object or record that is generally accepted as payment for goods and services and repayment of debts in a given country or socio-economic context. The main functions of money are distinguished as: a medium of exchange; a unit of account; a store of value; and, occasionally in the past,...

in transactions of various kinds, from the everyday circulation coins to the storage of large numbers of bullion coins. In the present day, coins and banknote

Banknote

A banknote is a kind of negotiable instrument, a promissory note made by a bank payable to the bearer on demand, used as money, and in many jurisdictions is legal tender. In addition to coins, banknotes make up the cash or bearer forms of all modern fiat money...

s make up currency

Currency

In economics, currency refers to a generally accepted medium of exchange. These are usually the coins and banknotes of a particular government, which comprise the physical aspects of a nation's money supply...

, the cash forms of all modern money systems. Coins made for paying bills and general monetized use are usually used for lower-valued units, and banknotes for the higher values; also, in many money systems, the highest value coin made for circulation is worth less than the lowest-value note. In the last hundred years, the face value of circulation coins has usually been higher than the gross value of the metal used in making them; exceptions occurring when inflation

Inflation

In economics, inflation is a rise in the general level of prices of goods and services in an economy over a period of time.When the general price level rises, each unit of currency buys fewer goods and services. Consequently, inflation also reflects an erosion in the purchasing power of money – a...

causes the metal value to surpass the face value, causing the minting authority to change the composition and the old coins to begin to disappear from circulation (see Gresham's Law

Gresham's Law

Gresham's law is an economic principle that states: "When a government compulsorily overvalues one type of money and undervalues another, the undervalued money will leave the country or disappear from circulation into hoards, while the overvalued money will flood into circulation." It is commonly...

.) However, this has generally not been the case throughout the rest of history for circulation coins made of precious metals.

Exceptions to the rule of coin face-value being higher than content value, also occur for some bullion coins made of silver or gold (and, rarely, other metals, such as platinum

Platinum

Platinum is a chemical element with the chemical symbol Pt and an atomic number of 78. Its name is derived from the Spanish term platina del Pinto, which is literally translated into "little silver of the Pinto River." It is a dense, malleable, ductile, precious, gray-white transition metal...

or palladium

Palladium

Palladium is a chemical element with the chemical symbol Pd and an atomic number of 46. It is a rare and lustrous silvery-white metal discovered in 1803 by William Hyde Wollaston. He named it after the asteroid Pallas, which was itself named after the epithet of the Greek goddess Athena, acquired...

), intended for collectors or investors in precious metals. Examples of modern gold collector/investor coins include the American Gold Eagle

American Gold Eagle

The American Gold Eagle is an official gold bullion coin of the United States. Authorized under the Gold Bullion Coin Act of 1985, it was first released by the United States Mint in 1986.- Details :...

minted by the United States, the Canadian Gold Maple Leaf

Canadian Gold Maple Leaf

The Canadian Gold Maple Leaf is the official bullion gold coin of Canada, and is produced by the Royal Canadian Mint. The brainchild of Walter Ott, it is one of the purest gold regular-issue coins in the world with a gold content of .9999 millesimal fineness , with some special issues .99999 fine...

minted by Canada, and the Krugerrand

Krugerrand

The Krugerrand is a South African gold coin, first minted in 1967 to help market South African gold. The coin, produced by the South African Mint, proved popular and by 1980 the Krugerrand accounted for 90% of the gold coin market. The name itself is a compound of Kruger and rand, the South...

, minted by South Africa. The American Gold Eagle

American Gold Eagle

has a face value of US$50, and the Canadian Gold Maple Leaf

Canadian Gold Maple Leaf

coins also have nominal (purely symbolic) face values (e.g., C$50 for 1 oz.); but the Krugerrand

Krugerrand

does not.

Historically, a great number of coinage metals

Coinage metals

The coinage metals comprise, at minimum, those metallic chemical elements which have historically been used as components in alloys used to mint coins. The term is not perfectly defined, however, since a number of metals have been used to make "demonstration coins" which have never been used to...

(including alloys) and other materials have been used practically, artistically, and experimentally in the production of coins for circulation, collection, and metal investment, where bullion coins often serve as more convenient stores of assured metal quantity and purity than other bullion.

Coins have long been linked to the concept of money, as reflected by the fact that in some other languages the words "coin" and "currency

Currency

" are synonymous. Fictional currencies may also bear the name coin (as such, an item may be said to be worth 123 coin or 123 coins).

The value of a coin

In terms of its value as a collector's item, a coin is generally made more or less valuable by its condition, specific historical significance, rarity, quality/beauty of the design and general popularity with collectors. If a coin is greatly lacking in all of these, it is unlikely to be worth much. Bullion coins are also valued based on these factors, but are largely valued based on the value of the gold or silver in them. Sometimes non-monetized bullion coins such as the Canadian Maple Leaf

Canadian Maple Leaf

The Canadian Maple Leaf coins are bullion coins of gold, silver, platinum, or palladium. The coins are issued by the Royal Canadian Mint.-List of coins:*Canadian Gold Maple Leaf*Canadian Platinum Maple Leaf*Canadian Silver Maple Leaf...

and the American Gold Eagle

American Gold Eagle

are minted with nominal face values less than the value of the metal in them, but as such coins are never intended for circulation, these value numbers are not market but fiat values

Fiat money

Fiat money is money that has value only because of government regulation or law. The term derives from the Latin fiat, meaning "let it be done", as such money is established by government decree. Where fiat money is used as currency, the term fiat currency is used.Fiat money originated in 11th...

.

Most coins presently are made of a base metal

Base metal

In chemistry, the term base metal is used informally to refer to a metal that oxidizes or corrodes relatively easily, and reacts variably with diluted hydrochloric acid to form hydrogen. Examples include iron, nickel, lead and zinc...

, and their value comes from their status as fiat money

Fiat money

. This means that the value of the coin is decreed by government fiat (law), and thus is determined by the free market

Free market

A free market is a competitive market where prices are determined by supply and demand. However, the term is also commonly used for markets in which economic intervention and regulation by the state is limited to tax collection, and enforcement of private ownership and contracts...

only inasmuch as national currencies are subjected to various types of foreign exchange market

Foreign exchange market

The foreign exchange market is a global, worldwide decentralized financial market for trading currencies. Financial centers around the world function as anchors of trading between a wide range of different types of buyers and sellers around the clock, with the exception of weekends...

s in international trade. This causes such coins to be monetary tokens

Token coin

In the study of numismatics, tokens are coin-like objects used instead of coins. The field of tokens is part of exonumia. Tokens are used in place of coins and either have a denomination shown or implied by size, color or shape...

in the same sense that paper currency is, when the paper currency is not backed directly by metal, but rather by a government guarantee of international exchange of goods or services. Some have suggested that such coins not be considered to be "true coins" (see below). However, because fiat money

Fiat money

is backed by government guarantee of a certain amount of goods and services, where the value of this is in turn determined by free market

Free market

currency exchange rates, similar to the case for the international market exchange values which determines the value of metals which back commodity money

Commodity money

Commodity money is money whose value comes from a commodity out of which it is made. It is objects that have value in themselves as well as for use as money....

, in practice there is very little economic difference between the two types of money (types of currencies).

Coins may be minted that have fiat values lower than the value of their component metals, but this is never done intentionally and initially for circulation coins, and happens only in due course later in the history of coin production due to inflation

Inflation

, as market values for the metal overtake the fiat declared face value of the coin. Examples of this phenomenon include the pre-1965 US dime, quarter, half dollar, and dollar

Dime (United States coin)

The dime is a coin 10 cents, one tenth of a United States dollar, labeled formally as "one dime". The denomination was first authorized by the Coinage Act of 1792. The dime is the smallest in diameter and is the thinnest of all U.S...

, US nickel

Nickel (United States coin)

The nickel is a five-cent coin, representing a unit of currency equaling five hundredths of one United States dollar. A later-produced Canadian nickel five-cent coin was also called by the same name....

, and pre-1982 US penny

Cent (United States coin)

The United States one-cent coin, commonly known as a penny, is a unit of currency equaling one one-hundredth of a United States dollar. The cent's symbol is ¢. Its obverse has featured the profile of President Abraham Lincoln since 1909, the centennial of his birth. From 1959 to 2008, the reverse...

. As a result of the increase in the value of copper, the United States greatly reduced the amount of copper in each penny. Since mid-1982, United States pennies are made of 97.5% zinc, coated with 2.5% copper. Extreme differences between fiat values and metal values of coins causes coins to be removed from circulation by illicit smelters interested in the value of their metal content. This is an example of Gresham's Law

Gresham's Law

. In fact, the United States Mint

United States Mint

The United States Mint primarily produces circulating coinage for the United States to conduct its trade and commerce. The Mint was created by Congress with the Coinage Act of 1792, and placed within the Department of State...

, in anticipation of this practice, implemented new interim rules on December 14, 2006, subject to public comment for 30 days, which criminalized the melting and export of pennies and nickels. Violators can be punished with a fine of up to $10,000 and/or imprisoned for a maximum of five years.

First coins

Homer

In the Western classical tradition Homer , is the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and is revered as the greatest ancient Greek epic poet. These epics lie at the beginning of the Western canon of literature, and have had an enormous influence on the history of literature.When he lived is...

used the ox

An ox , also known as a bullock in Australia, New Zealand and India, is a bovine trained as a draft animal. Oxen are commonly castrated adult male cattle; castration makes the animals more tractable...

as the base "currency" of goods, for example he valued the bronze armour of Diomedes

Diomedes

Diomedes or Diomed is a hero in Greek mythology, known for his participation in the Trojan War.He was born to Tydeus and Deipyle and later became King of Argos, succeeding his maternal grandfather, Adrastus. In Homer's Iliad Diomedes is regarded alongside Ajax as one of the best warriors of all...

worth nine oxen, while the golden armour of Glaucus

Glaucus (soldier)

Glaucus was a son of Hippolochus and a grandson of Bellerophon. He was a captain in the Lycian army under the command of his close friend and cousin Sarpedon. The Lycians in the Trojan War were allies of Troy...

, worth one hundred oxen. As a measure of gold he used the talent,
Achilles

Achilles

In Greek mythology, Achilles was a Greek hero of the Trojan War, the central character and the greatest warrior of Homer's Iliad.Plato named Achilles the handsomest of the heroes assembled against Troy....

for example gives half-talent of gold to Antilochus

Antilochus

In Greek mythology, Antilochus was the son of Nestor, king of Pylos. One of the suitors of Helen of Troy, he accompanied his father and his brother Thrasymedes to the Trojan War. He was distinguished for his beauty, swiftness of foot, and skill as a charioteer...

as a prize
.

Herodotus

Herodotus

Herodotus was an ancient Greek historian who was born in Halicarnassus, Caria and lived in the 5th century BC . He has been called the "Father of History", and was the first historian known to collect his materials systematically, test their accuracy to a certain extent and arrange them in a...

states (I, 94) that the Lydians 'were the first to coin in gold and silver'.
Aristotle

Aristotle

Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...

states that the first coins were struck by Demodike of Kyme, of Ancient Greece, who had married Midas

Midas

For the legend of Gordias, a person who was taken by the people and made King, in obedience to the command of the oracle, see Gordias.Midas or King Midas is popularly remembered in Greek mythology for his ability to turn everything he touched into gold. This was called the Golden touch, or the...

, king of Pessinus

Pessinus

Pessinus was a city in Anatolia, the Asian part of Turkey on the upper course of the river Sakarya River , from which the mythological King Midas is said to have ruled a greater Phrygian realm...

, and had by him a son named Agamemnon

Some archaeological and literary evidences suggest that the Indians

Iron Age India

Iron Age India, the Iron Age in the Indian subcontinent, succeeds the Late Harappan culture, also known as the last phase of the Indus Valley Tradition...

invented coinage, somewhere between the 6th to 5th century BC. However, some numismatists consider coins to have originated ca. 600-550 BC in Anatolia

Anatolia

Anatolia is a geographic and historical term denoting the westernmost protrusion of Asia, comprising the majority of the Republic of Turkey...

, which corresponds to modern-day Turkey, in particular in the Anatolian kingdom of Lydia

Lydia

Lydia was an Iron Age kingdom of western Asia Minor located generally east of ancient Ionia in the modern Turkish provinces of Manisa and inland İzmir. Its population spoke an Anatolian language known as Lydian....

. Opponents of the Lydia scenario point to the fact that coins of that era have been totally absent from archeological finds in Sardis

Sardis

Sardis or Sardes was an ancient city at the location of modern Sart in Turkey's Manisa Province...

, capital of Lydia. A coin, by definition, is an object used to facilitate commerce and exchanges. The proponents of the Lydian Greek coins scenario admit the fact that they were likely not used in commerce or industry. Electrum

Electrum

Electrum is a naturally occurring alloy of gold and silver, with trace amounts of copper and other metals. It has also been produced artificially. The ancient Greeks called it 'gold' or 'white gold', as opposed to 'refined gold'. Its color ranges from pale to bright yellow, depending on the...

coins were not standardized in weight and are considered by opponents as badges, medals or ceremonial objects issued by priests, rather than coins (actually the oldest of them have been discovered not in Lydia, but in an ancient Greek temple of Ephesos, a city colony built by the ancient Greeks in what is now Turkey).

The oldest coins are considered by other numismatists to be the Aegina

Aegina

Aegina is one of the Saronic Islands of Greece in the Saronic Gulf, from Athens. Tradition derives the name from Aegina, the mother of Aeacus, who was born in and ruled the island. During ancient times, Aegina was a rival to Athens, the great sea power of the era.-Municipality:The municipality...

Chelone

Chelone (Greek mythology)

Chelone , an Oread nymph of Arcadia in Greek mythology, invented to provide an etiological myth for the tortoise: in one of Aesop's Fables, she refused to attend or was very naughty and disrespectful at the marriage of Zeus and Hera, and as a result she was transformed into a tortoise, condemning...

coins which were minted ca. 700-550 BC, either by the local Aegina people or by Pheidon

Pheidon

Pheidon was a king of Argos, Greece in the 7th century BC. At that time, the monarch was purely a traditional figurehead with almost no genuine power. Pheidon seized the throne from the reigning aristocracy...

king of Argos

Argos

Argos is a city and a former municipality in Argolis, Peloponnese, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Argos-Mykines, of which it is a municipal unit. It is 11 kilometres from Nafplion, which was its historic harbour...

(who first set the standards of weights and measures). In the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, there is a unique electrum

Electrum

stater of Aegina

Aegina

. The date of this coin can hardly be much later than about B.C. 700.

The Ancient Greeks spread the Anatolia practice (or vice versa) and extended it to commerce and trade. Coinage followed Greek colonization and influence first around the Mediterranean and soon after to North Africa (including Egypt), Syria, Persia, and the Balkans.

The first Lydian coins were made of electrum

Electrum

, a naturally occurring alloy of silver and gold that was further alloyed with added silver and copper. Many early Lydian and Greek coins were undoubtedly minted under the authority of private individuals and are thus more akin to tokens or badges than true coins, though because of their numbers it's evident that some were official state issues, with King Alyattes

Alyattes II

Alyattes, king of Lydia , considered to be the founder of the Lydian empire, was the son of Sadyattes, of the house of the Mermnadae....

of Lydia being a frequently mentioned originator of coinage.

Most of the early Lydian coins include no writing, called a "legend" or "inscription", only an image of a symbolic animal. Therefore the dating of these coins relies primarily on archeological evidence, with the most commonly cited evidence coming from excavations at the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, also called the Ephesian Artemision (which would later evolve into one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World

Seven Wonders of the Ancient World

The Seven Wonders of the World refers to remarkable constructions of classical antiquity listed by various authors in guidebooks popular among the ancient Hellenic tourists, particularly in the 1st and 2nd centuries BC...

). The fact that the oldest lion head coins were discovered in that temple, and the fact that they were not used in commerce, strengths the scenario that these coins found there may have actually been badges or medals that were issued by the priests of the temple of Artemis

Temple of Artemis

The Temple of Artemis , also known less precisely as the Temple of Diana, was a Greek temple dedicated to a goddess Greeks identified as Artemis and was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. It was situated at Ephesus , and was completely rebuilt three times before its eventual destruction...

, and the name of the person who received the badge or medal was inscribed on it. Artemis in Anatolia was named Potnia Theron

Potnia Theron

Potnia Theron is a term first used by Homer and often used to describe female divinities associated with animals...

, which is translated as "mistress of the animals", and her symbol was the lion and the tiger.

A small percentage of early Lydian Greek coins have a legend.

A famous early electrum

Electrum

coin, the most ancient inscribed coin at present known, is from nearby Caria

Caria

Caria was a region of western Anatolia extending along the coast from mid-Ionia south to Lycia and east to Phrygia. The Ionian and Dorian Greeks colonized the west of it and joined the Carian population in forming Greek-dominated states there...

, Asia Minor

Asia Minor

Asia Minor is a geographical location at the westernmost protrusion of Asia, also called Anatolia, and corresponds to the western two thirds of the Asian part of Turkey...

. This coin has a Greek legend reading "Phaenos emi sema" which can be translated either as "I am the badge of Phanes" or as "I am the sign of light" or maybe "I am the tomb of light" or "I am the tomb of Phanes". The celebrated coins of Phanes are known to be amongst the earliest of Greek coins, a hemihekte of the issue was found in the famous foundation deposit of the temple of Artemis at Ephesos (this deposit is considered the oldest deposit of electrum

Electrum

coins discovered). One assumption is that Phanes was a wealthy merchant, another that this coin is associated with Apollo-Phanes

Phanes (mythology)

Phanes , or Protogonos , was the mystic primeval deity of procreation and the generation of new life, who was introduced into Greek mythology by the Orphic tradition; other names for this Classical Greek Orphic concept included Ericapaeus and Metis...

and, due to the Deer

Deer

Deer are the ruminant mammals forming the family Cervidae. Species in the Cervidae family include white-tailed deer, elk, moose, red deer, reindeer, fallow deer, roe deer and chital. Male deer of all species and female reindeer grow and shed new antlers each year...

, with Artemis

Artemis

Artemis was one of the most widely venerated of the Ancient Greek deities. Her Roman equivalent is Diana. Some scholars believe that the name and indeed the goddess herself was originally pre-Greek. Homer refers to her as Artemis Agrotera, Potnia Theron: "Artemis of the wildland, Mistress of Animals"...

(twin sister of the god of light Apollo

Apollo

Apollo is one of the most important and complex of the Olympian deities in Greek and Roman mythology...

-Phaneos). Although only seven Phanes type coins were discovered, it is also notable that 20% of all early electrum

Electrum

coins also have the Lion (symbol of Artemis-Potnia Theron) and the sun burst (symbol of Apollo-Phaneos). Alternatively it is stated that the inscribed Phanes maybe was the Halicarnassian

Halicarnassus

Halicarnassus was an ancient Greek city at the site of modern Bodrum in Turkey. It was located in southwest Caria on a picturesque, advantageous site on the Ceramic Gulf. The city was famous for the tomb of Mausolus, the origin of the word mausoleum, built between 353 BC and 350 BC, and...

mercenary of Amasis, mentioned by Herodotus

Herodotus

, who escaped to the court of Cambyses

Cambyses

Cambyses can refer to two ancient rulers and two plays:-*Cambyses I, King of Anshan 600 to 559 BCE*Cambyses II, King of Persia 530 to 522 BCE*Cambyses, a tragedy by Thomas Preston...

, and became his guide in the invasion of Egypt in the year B.C. 527 or 525. According to Herodotus, this Phanes was buried alive by a sandstorm, together with 50000 Persian soldiers, while trying to conquer the temple of Amun

Amun

Amun, reconstructed Egyptian Yamānu , was a god in Egyptian mythology who in the form of Amun-Ra became the focus of the most complex system of theology in Ancient Egypt...

–Zeus

Zeus

In the ancient Greek religion, Zeus was the "Father of Gods and men" who ruled the Olympians of Mount Olympus as a father ruled the family. He was the god of sky and thunder in Greek mythology. His Roman counterpart is Jupiter and his Etruscan counterpart is Tinia.Zeus was the child of Cronus...

in Egypt. The fact that the Greek word "Phanes" also means light (or lamp), and the word "sema" also means tomb, makes this coin a famous and controversial one.

Another possible candidate for first metal coins come from China. The earliest known Chinese metal tokens were made ca. 900 BC, discovered in a tomb near Anyang

Anyang

Anyang is a prefecture-level city in Henan province, People's Republic of China. The northernmost city in Henan, Anyang borders Puyang to the east, Hebi and Xinxiang to the south, and the provinces of Shanxi and Hebei to its west and north respectively....

. These were replicas in bronze of earlier Chinese money, cowry

Cowry

Cowry, also sometimes spelled cowrie, plural cowries, is the common name for a group of small to large sea snails, marine gastropod molluscs in the family Cypraeidae, the cowries...

shells, so they were named Bronze Shell

Tong Bei

Tong Bei literally translated as "Bronze Cowry" or "Bronze Shell", is an ancient coin found in China. This coin itself is a replica of more ancient Cowry Money, made for the purpose of replacing it.-External links:*...

.

Most numismatists, however, regard these as well as later Chinese bronzes that were replicas of knives, spades, and hoes as money but not as coins because they did not at least initially carry a mark or marks certifying them to be of a definite exchange value.

Along with Anatolia and China, India also played a major part in the development of coinage. The first Indian coins were minted

Mint (coin)

A mint is an industrial facility which manufactures coins for currency.The history of mints correlates closely with the history of coins. One difference is that the history of the mint is usually closely tied to the political situation of an era...

around the 6th century BC by the Mahajanapadas

Mahajanapadas

Mahājanapadas , literally "great realms", were ancient Indian kingdoms or countries...

of the Indo-Gangetic Plain

Indo-Gangetic plain

The northern Plains also known as the Indo - Gangetic Plain and The North Indian River Plain is a large and fertile plain encompassing most of northern and eastern India, the most populous parts of Pakistan, parts of southern Nepal and virtually all of Bangladesh...

. The coins of this period were punch marked coins called Puranas, Karshapanas or Pana. The Mahajanapadas that minted their own coins included Gandhara

Gandhara

Gandhāra , is the name of an ancient kingdom , located in northern Pakistan and eastern Afghanistan. Gandhara was located mainly in the vale of Peshawar, the Potohar plateau and on the Kabul River...

, Kuntala

Kuntala

Kuntala is a village and a Mandal in Adilabad district in the state of Andhra Pradesh in India. Kuntala has the highest waterfalls in the Andhra Pradesh state with a height of 45 meters.-The waterfall:Main article: Kuntala Waterfall...

, Kuru, Panchala

Panchala

Panchala is an ancient region of northern India, which corresponds to the geographical area around the Ganges River and Yamuna River, the upper Gangetic plain in particular. This would encompass the modern-day states of Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh. During the ancient times, it was home to a...

, Shakya

Shakya

Shakya was an ancient janapada of India in the 1st millennium BCE. In Buddhist texts the Shakyas, the inhabitants of Shakya janapada, are mentioned as a clan of Gotama gotra....

, Surasena

Surasena

Surasena was an ancient Indian region corresponding to the present-day Braj region in Uttar Pradesh. According to the Buddhist text Anguttara Nikaya, Surasena was one of the solasa Mahajanapadas in 6th century BCE The ancient Greek writers refer the region as Sourasenoi and mention its capital...

, and Surashtra.

The earliest coins made of pure gold

Gold

Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au and an atomic number of 79. Gold is a dense, soft, shiny, malleable and ductile metal. Pure gold has a bright yellow color and luster traditionally considered attractive, which it maintains without oxidizing in air or water. Chemically, gold is a...

and silver

Silver

Silver is a metallic chemical element with the chemical symbol Ag and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it has the highest electrical conductivity of any element and the highest thermal conductivity of any metal...

were made by King Croesus

Croesus

Croesus was the king of Lydia from 560 to 547 BC until his defeat by the Persians. The fall of Croesus made a profound impact on the Hellenes, providing a fixed point in their calendar. "By the fifth century at least," J.A.S...

of Lydia, son of Alyattes. Shortly afterward in the same region gold "darics" and silver "sigloi" were issued by the Achaemenid Empire

Achaemenid Empire

The Achaemenid Empire , sometimes known as First Persian Empire and/or Persian Empire, was founded in the 6th century BCE by Cyrus the Great who overthrew the Median confederation...

of the Persians.

The first European coins are regarded as having been minted ca. 550 BC in Aegina

Aegina

, an island in the Aegean Sea, with coins of Athens

Classical Athens

The city of Athens during the classical period of Ancient Greece was a notable polis of Attica, Greece, leading the Delian League in the Peloponnesian War against Sparta and the Peloponnesian League. Athenian democracy was established in 508 BC under Cleisthenes following the tyranny of Hippias...

and Corinth

Ancient Corinth

Corinth, or Korinth was a city-state on the Isthmus of Corinth, the narrow stretch of land that joins the Peloponnesus to the mainland of Greece, roughly halfway between Athens and Sparta. The modern town of Corinth is located approximately northeast of the ancient ruins...

soon following. The first Roman coins

Roman currency

The Roman currency during most of the Roman Republic and the western half of the Roman Empire consisted of coins including the aureus , the denarius , the sestertius , the dupondius , and the as...

, which were crude, heavy cast bronzes, were issued ca. 289 BC. The first European coin to use Arabic numerals

Arabic numerals

Arabic numerals or Hindu numerals or Hindu-Arabic numerals or Indo-Arabic numerals are the ten digits . They are descended from the Hindu-Arabic numeral system developed by Indian mathematicians, in which a sequence of digits such as "975" is read as a numeral...

to date the year in which the coin was minted was the Swiss 1424 St. Gallen

St. Gallen

St. Gallen is the capital of the canton of St. Gallen in Switzerland. It evolved from the hermitage of Saint Gall, founded in the 7th century. Today, it is a large urban agglomeration and represents the center of eastern Switzerland. The town mainly relies on the service sector for its economic...

silver Plappart.

Coin debasement

Throughout history, governments have been known to create more coinage than their supply of precious metals would allow. By replacing some fraction of a coin's precious metal content with a base metal (often copper

Copper

Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu and atomic number 29. It is a ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. Pure copper is soft and malleable; an exposed surface has a reddish-orange tarnish...

or nickel

Nickel

Nickel is a chemical element with the chemical symbol Ni and atomic number 28. It is a silvery-white lustrous metal with a slight golden tinge. Nickel belongs to the transition metals and is hard and ductile...

), the intrinsic value of each individual coin was reduced (thereby "debasing" their money), allowing the coining authority to produce more coins than would otherwise be possible. Debasement sometimes occurs in order to make the coin harder and therefore less likely to be worn down as quickly. Debasement of money almost always leads to price inflation

Inflation

unless price controls are also instituted by the governing authority, in which case a black market will often arise.

The United States is unusual in that it has only slightly modified its coinage system (except for the images and symbols on the coins, which have changed a number of times) to accommodate two centuries of inflation. The one-cent coin has changed little since 1856 (though its composition was changed in 1982 to remove virtually all copper from the coin) and still remains in circulation, despite a greatly reduced purchasing power. On the other end of the spectrum, the largest coin in common circulation is 25 cents, a low value for the largest denomination coin compared to other countries. Recent increases in the prices of copper, nickel, and zinc, mean that both the US one- and five-cent coins are now worth more for their raw metal content than their face (fiat) value. In particular, copper one-cent pieces (those dated prior to 1982 and some 1982-dated coins) now contain about two cents worth of copper. Some denominations of circulating coins that were formerly minted in the United States are no longer made. These include coins with a face value of half a cent, two cents, three cents,and twenty cents. (The Half Dollar and Dollar coins are still produced, but mostly for vending machines and collectors.) The United States also used to coin the following denominations for circulation in gold: One dollar, $2.50, three dollars, five dollars, ten dollars, and twenty dollars. In addition, cents were originally slightly larger than the modern quarter and weighed nearly half an ounce, while five cent coins were smaller than a dime and made of a silver alloy. Dollars were also much larger and weighed approximately an ounce. One dollar coins are no longer produced and rarely used. The U.S. also has bullion and commemorative coins with the following denominations: 50¢, $1, $5, $10, $25, $50, and $100.

Other uses

Some convicted criminals from the British Isles who were sentenced to transportation to Australia in the 18th and 19th centuries used coins to leave messages of remembrance to loved ones left behind in Britain. The coins were defaced, smoothed and inscribed, either by stippling or engraving, with sometimes touching words of loss. These coins were called "convict love tokens" or "leaden hearts". A number of these tokens are in the collection of the National Museum of Australia

National Museum of Australia

The National Museum of Australia was formally established by the National Museum of Australia Act 1980. The National Museum preserves and interprets Australia's social history, exploring the key issues, people and events that have shaped the nation....

Features of modern coins

Circulating coins commonly suffered from "shaving" or "clipping", by which persons would cut off small amounts of precious metal from their edges to form new coins. Unmilled British sterling silver

Sterling silver

Sterling silver is an alloy of silver containing 92.5% by mass of silver and 7.5% by mass of other metals, usually copper. The sterling silver standard has a minimum millesimal fineness of 925....

coins were sometimes reduced to almost half their minted weight. This form of debasement in Tudor

Tudor dynasty

The Tudor dynasty or House of Tudor was a European royal house of Welsh origin that ruled the Kingdom of England and its realms, including the Lordship of Ireland, later the Kingdom of Ireland, from 1485 until 1603. Its first monarch was Henry Tudor, a descendant through his mother of a legitimised...

England was commented on by Sir Thomas Gresham

Thomas Gresham

Sir Thomas Gresham was an English merchant and financier who worked for King Edward VI of England and for Edward's half-sisters, Queens Mary I and Elizabeth I.-Family and childhood:...

, whose name was later attached to Gresham's Law

Gresham's Law

. The monarch would have to periodically recall circulating coins, paying only bullion value of the silver, and reminting them. This, also known as recoinage, is a long and difficult process that was done only occasionally. While master of the Royal Mint, Isaac Newton

Isaac Newton

Sir Isaac Newton PRS was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian, who has been "considered by many to be the greatest and most influential scientist who ever lived."...

came up with the idea of milling lines on the edges of coins to make it easier to detect coin clipping and to help reduce recoining. The milled, or reeded, edges are still found on many coins today.

Traditionally, the side of a coin carrying a bust of a monarch or other authority, or a national emblem

National emblem

A national emblem symbolically represents a nation. Most national emblems originate in the natural world, such as animals or birds, but another object may serve. National emblems may appear on many things such as the national flag, coat of arms, or other patriotic materials...

, is called the obverse, or colloquially, heads; see also List of people on coins. The other side is called the reverse
Obverse and reverse
Obverse and its opposite, reverse, refer to the two flat faces of coins and some other two-sided objects, including paper money, flags , seals, medals, drawings, old master prints and other works of art, and printed fabrics. In this usage, obverse means the front face of the object and reverse...

, or colloquially, tails. However, the rule is violated in some cases. Another rule is that the side carrying the year of mint

Mint (coin)

ing is the obverse, although some Chinese

People's Republic of China

China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...

coins, most Canadian

Canadian coinage

Canadian coinage is the coinage of Canada, produced by the Royal Canadian Mint and denominated in Canadian dollars or cents .-Denominations:There are seven denominations of Canadian coinage circulating: 1¢, 5¢, 10¢, 25¢, 50¢, $1, and $2...

coins, the pre-2008 British 20p coin, and all Japanese coins, are exceptions.

In cases where a correctly oriented coin is flipped vertically to show the other side correctly oriented, the coin is said to have coin orientation

Coin orientation

Coin orientation is a feature of coins printed by some nations. In these nations, most coins, including all modern coins, have their reverse turned, or aligned, in a specified way relative to the obverse...

. In cases where a coin is flipped horizontally to show the other side, it is said to have medallic orientation

Medallic orientation

Medallic orientation is a feature of coins. When viewing one side of a coin with medallic orientation, correct side up, the coin must be flipped about its vertical axis in order to see the other side the correct way up...

. While coins of the United States Dollar

United States dollar

The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....

are coin orientated, those of the Euro

Euro

The euro is the official currency of the eurozone: 17 of the 27 member states of the European Union. It is also the currency used by the Institutions of the European Union. The eurozone consists of Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg,...

and British Pound are medallic.

Bi-metallic coins

Bi-metallic coins

Bi-metallic coins are coins consisting of more than one metal or alloy, generally arranged with an outer ring around a contrasting center. Common circulating examples include the €1, €2, British £2, Canadian $2, South African R5, Turkish 1 lira, and all Mexican coins of $1 or higher...

are sometimes used for higher values and for commemorative purposes. In the 1990s, France used a tri-metallic coin. Common circulating examples include the €1

1 euro coins

1 euro coins are made of two alloys: the inner part of cupronickel, the outer part of nickel brass. All coins have a common reverse side and country-specific national sides...

, €2

2 euro coins

2 euro coins are made of two alloys: the inner part of nickel brass, the outer part of copper-nickel. All coins have a common reverse side and country-specific national sides...

, British £2 and Canadian $2.

The exergue is the space on a coin beneath the main design, often used to show the coin's date, although it is sometimes left blank or containing a mint mark

Mint mark

A mint mark is an inscription on a coin indicating the mint where the coin was produced.-History:Mint marks were first developed to locate a problem. If a coin was underweight, or overweight, the mint mark would immediately tell where the coin was minted, and the problem could be located and fixed...

, privy mark

Privy mark

A privy mark was originally a small mark or differentiation in the design of a coin for the purpose of identifying the mint, moneyer, or some other aspect of the coin's production or origin, for control purposes. Nowadays it is mainly used as a design and marketing feature....

, or some other decorative or informative design feature. Many coins do not have an exergue at all, especially those with few or no legends, such as the Victorian bun penny.

Not all coins are round. The Australian 50 cent coin, for example, has twelve flat sides

Dodecagon

In geometry, a dodecagon is any polygon with twelve sides and twelve angles.- Regular dodecagon :It usually refers to a regular dodecagon, having all sides of equal length and all angles equal to 150°...

. A twist on it is wavy edges, found in the two dollar and the twenty cent coins of Hong Kong and the 10 cent coins of Bahamas. Some coins have also been issued in the shape of a square, such as the 15 cent coin of the Bahamas. During the 1970s, Swazi

Swaziland

Swaziland, officially the Kingdom of Swaziland , and sometimes called Ngwane or Swatini, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa, bordered to the north, south and west by South Africa, and to the east by Mozambique...

coins were minted in several shapes, including squares, polygons, and wavy edged circles with 8 and 12 waves.

Some other coins, like the British Fifty pence coin and the Canadian Loonie

Loonie

The Canadian 1 dollar coin is a gold-coloured, bronze-plated, one-dollar coin introduced in 1987. It bears images of a common loon, a bird which is common and well known in Canada, on the reverse, and of Queen Elizabeth II on the obverse.The design for the coin was meant to be a voyageur theme,...

, have an odd number of sides, with the edges rounded off. This way the coin has a constant diameter

Curve of constant width

In geometry, a curve of constant width is a convex planar shape whose width, defined as the perpendicular distance between two distinct parallel lines each intersecting its boundary in a single point, is the same regardless of the direction of those two parallel lines.More generally, any compact...

, recognisable by vending machine

Vending machine

A vending machine is a machine which dispenses items such as snacks, beverages, alcohol, cigarettes, lottery tickets, consumer products and even gold and gems to customers automatically, after the customer inserts currency or credit into the machine....

s whichever direction it is inserted.

A triangular coin with a face value of five pounds (produced to commemorate the 2007/2008 Tutankhamun

Tutankhamun

Tutankhamun , Egyptian , ; approx. 1341 BC – 1323 BC) was an Egyptian pharaoh of the 18th dynasty , during the period of Egyptian history known as the New Kingdom...

exhibition at The O2 Arena

The O2 arena (London)

The O2 Arena is a multi-purpose indoor arena located in the centre of The O2, a large entertainment complex on the Greenwich peninsula in London, England.With a capacity of up to 20,000 depending on the event, it is second largest...

) was commissioned by the Isle of Man

Isle of Man

The Isle of Man , otherwise known simply as Mann , is a self-governing British Crown Dependency, located in the Irish Sea between the islands of Great Britain and Ireland, within the British Isles. The head of state is Queen Elizabeth II, who holds the title of Lord of Mann. The Lord of Mann is...

, it became legal tender on 6 December 2007.. Other triangular coins issued earlier include: Cabinda

Republic of Cabinda

The Republic of Cabinda also called Republique du Kabinda is the self-proclaimed, unrecognized government led by FLEC-FAC who claims sovereignty over the Angolan Cabinda Province as an independent country...

coin, Bermuda

Bermuda

Bermuda is a British overseas territory in the North Atlantic Ocean. Located off the east coast of the United States, its nearest landmass is Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, about to the west-northwest. It is about south of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, and northeast of Miami, Florida...

coin, 2 Dollar Cook Islands

Cook Islands

The Cook Islands is a self-governing parliamentary democracy in the South Pacific Ocean in free association with New Zealand...

1992 triangular coin, Uganda

Uganda

Uganda , officially the Republic of Uganda, is a landlocked country in East Africa. Uganda is also known as the "Pearl of Africa". It is bordered on the east by Kenya, on the north by South Sudan, on the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, on the southwest by Rwanda, and on the south by...

Millennium Coin and Polish

Poland

Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...

Sterling-Silver 10-Zloty Coin.

Guitar-shaped coins were once issued in Somalia. Poland once issued a fan-shaped 10 złoty coin and the 2002 $10 coin from Nauru

Nauru

Nauru , officially the Republic of Nauru and formerly known as Pleasant Island, is an island country in Micronesia in the South Pacific. Its nearest neighbour is Banaba Island in Kiribati, to the east. Nauru is the world's smallest republic, covering just...

, was Europe-shaped.

Some mediaeval coins, called bracteate

Bracteate

A bracteate is a flat, thin, single-sided gold medal worn as jewelry that was produced in Northern Europe predominantly during the Migration Period of the Germanic Iron Age...

s, were so thin they were struck on only one side.

The Royal Canadian Mint

Royal Canadian Mint

The Royal Canadian Mint produces all of Canada's circulation coins, and manufactures circulation coins on behalf of other nations. The Mint also designs and manufactures: precious and base metal collector coins; gold, silver, palladium, and platinum bullion coins; medals, as well as medallions and...

is now able to produce holographic-effect gold and silver coinage. However this procedure is not limited to only bullion or commemorative coinage. The 500 yen coin from Japan, was subject to a massive amount of counterfeiting. The Japanese government in response produced a circulatory coin with a holographic image.

The Canadian Mint has also released several coins that are coloured, the first of which was in commemoration of remembrance day. The subject was a coloured poppy on the reverse of a 25 cent piece.

For a list of many pure metallic elements and their alloys which have been used in actual circulation coins and for trial experiments, see coinage metals

Coinage metals

Flipping

Coins are popularly used as a sort of two-sided die

Dice

A die is a small throwable object with multiple resting positions, used for generating random numbers...

; in order to choose between two options with a random possibility, one choice will be labeled "heads" and the other "tails", and a coin will be flipped or "tossed" to see whether the heads or tails side comes up on top – see coin flipping

Coin flipping

Coin flipping or coin tossing or heads or tails is the practice of throwing a coin in the air to choose between two alternatives, sometimes to resolve a dispute between two parties...

. Mathematically, this is known as a Bernoulli trial

Bernoulli trial

In the theory of probability and statistics, a Bernoulli trial is an experiment whose outcome is random and can be either of two possible outcomes, "success" and "failure"....

: a fair coin is defined to have the probability of heads (in the parlance of Bernoulli trials, a "success") of exactly 0.5. Coins are sometimes falsified to make one side weigh more, in order to simulate a fair type of coin which is actually not fair. Such a coin is said to be "weighted".

Spinning

Coins can also be spun on a flat surface such as a table. This results in the following phenomenon: as the coin falls over and rolls on its edge, it spins faster and faster (formally, the precession

Precession

Precession is a change in the orientation of the rotation axis of a rotating body. It can be defined as a change in direction of the rotation axis in which the second Euler angle is constant...

rate of the symmetry axis of the coin, i.e., the axis passing from one face of the coin to the other) before coming to an abrupt stop. This is mathematically modeled as a finite-time singularity – the precession rate is accelerating to infinity, before it suddenly stops, and has been studied using high speed photography

High speed photography

High speed photography is the science of taking pictures of very fast phenomena. In 1948, the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers defined high-speed photography as any set of photographs captured by a camera capable of 128 frames per second or greater, and of at least three...

and devices such as Euler's Disk

Euler's disk

Euler's Disk is a scientific educational toy, used to illustrate and study the dynamic system of a spinning disk on a flat surface , and has been the subject of a number of scientific papers. This phenomenon has been studied since Leonard Euler in the 18th century, hence the name.It is manufactured...

. The slowing down is predominantly caused by rolling friction (air resistance is minor), and the singularity (divergence of the precession rate) can be modeled as a power law

Power law

A power law is a special kind of mathematical relationship between two quantities. When the frequency of an event varies as a power of some attribute of that event , the frequency is said to follow a power law. For instance, the number of cities having a certain population size is found to vary...

with exponent approximately −1/3.

External links

ANA American Numismatics Association.
American Numismatic Society
Atlantic Provinces Numismatic Association providing news, events, latest releases from around the world, forums, and much more.
CoinFacts.com - The Internet Encyclopedia of US Coins Free information on United States Coins. Includes pricing, rarity, and historical information.
Coin catalog 19,214 coins cataloged with pictures.
The Coin Page Informational coin image database.
Silver Coins How to identify counterfeit silver coins.
NumisWiki
Digital Library Numis (DLN) Online numismatic literature.
World coins from Dema Yuriy collection.

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

The value of a coin

First coins

Coin debasement

Other uses

Features of modern coins

Flipping

Spinning

See also

External links