Famous Coins

Ancient Chinese coins were created constantly for around 2,500 years using the casting method, rather than being struck with dies as with most western coins. Collectors can obtain affordable yet old, beautiful, and interesting coins associated with all the main periods of Chinese history. Many appreciate the fine calligraphy and the patina accumulated by these coins over centuries. Numismatists find many challenges in attributing both ancient and comparatively recent coinage. The rise and fall of the quality of the coinage reflects the fortunes of the successive dynasties in Chinese history.

There are about 30,000 diverse Chinese coins including calligraphy and mint variations, spanning over a period of 3,000 years. They have many shapes and sizes. Since Han Dynasty, the coins are standardized into bronze items with round shape with a square hole in the center, and a rim at the edge. It is quite impossible to present such a vast amount of information in a web site, so we choose to present several hundred of the rarest types. The earliest coinage of China was described by Sima Qian, the great historian of c.100 BC: "With the opening of exchange between farmers, artisans, and merchants, there came into use money of tortoise shells, cowrie shells, gold, qian (coins), dao (knives), and bu (spades) This has been so from remote antiquity." While nothing is known about the use of tortoise shells as money, gold and cowries (either real shells or replicas) were used to the south of the Yellow River. Although there is no doubt that the well-known spade and knife money were used as coins, it has not been demonstrated that other items often offered by dealers as coins such as fish, halberds, and metal chimes were also used as coins. They are not found in coin hoards, and the probability is that all these are in fact funerary items. Archaeological evidence shows that the earliest use of the spade and knife money was in the Spring and Autumn period (770-476 BC). As in Ancient Greece, socio-economic conditions at the time were favourable to the adoption of coinage.

If discussing the background more closely, inscriptions and archaeological evidence show that cowrie shells were regarded as a vital objects of value in the Shang dynasty (c.1766-1154 BC). In the Zhou period, they are frequently referred to as gifts or rewards from kings and nobles to their subjects. Later imitations in bone, stone or bronze were probably used as money in some instances. Similar bronze pieces with inscriptions, known as Yi Bi Qian (Ant Nose Money) or Gui Lian Qian (Ghost Face Money) were certainly used as money. They have been found in areas to the south of the Yellow River corresponding to the State of Chu in the Warring States period. One hoard was of some 16,000 pieces. Their weight is very variable, and their alloy often contains a high proportion of lead. The name Ant (and) Nose refers to the appearance of the inscriptions, and is nothing to do with keeping ants out of the noses of corpses.

Interestingly, the only minted gold of this period known is Chu Gold Block Money, which consists of sheets of gold 3-5mm thick, of various sizes, with inscriptions consisting of square or round stamps in which there are one or two characters. They have been unearthed in various locations south of the Yellow River indicating that they were products of the State of Chu. One of the characters in their inscription is often a monetary unit or weight which is normally read as yuan. Pieces are of a very variable size and thickness, and the stamps appear to be a device to validate the whole block, rather than a guide to enable it to be broken up into unit pieces. Some specimens have been reported in copper, lead, or clay. It is probable that these were funeral money, not circulating coinage, as they are found in tombs, but the gold coins are not.

Hollow handled spades are a link connecting weeding tools used for barter and stylised objects used as money. They are clearly too flimsy for use, but retain the hollow socket by which a genuine tool could be attached to a handle. This socket is rectangular in cross-section, and still retains the clay from the casting process. In the socket the hole by which the tool was fixed to its handle is also reproduced. Prototype spade money: The shape and size of these items are close to the original agricultural implements. While some are perhaps robust enough to be used in the fields, others are much lighter and bear an inscription, probably the name of the city which issued it. Some of these objects have been found in Shang and Western Zhou tombs, so date from c.1200-800 BC. Inscribed specimens appear to date from c. 700 BC.

Taking into consideration the square shoulder spades, this type of spade coin has square shoulders, a straight or slightly curving foot, and three parallel lines on the obverse and reverse. They are found in quantities of up to several hundreds in the area corresponding to the Royal Domain of Zhou (south Hebei and north Henan). Archaeological evidence dates them to the early Spring and Autumn period, around 650 BC onwards. The inscriptions on these coins usually consist of one character, which can be a number, a cyclical character, a place name, or the name of a clan. The possibility that some inscriptions are the names of merchants has not been entertained. The crude writing is that of the artisans who made the coins, not the more careful script of the scholars who wrote the votive inscriptions on bronzes. The style of writing is consistent with that of the middle Zhou period. Over 200 inscriptions are known; many have not been fully deciphered. The characters can be found on the left or the right of the central line and are sometimes inverted or retrograde. The alloy of these is coins is typically 80% copper, 15% lead, and 5% tin. They are found in hoards of hundreds, rather than thousands, sometimes tied together in bundles. Although there is no mention in the literature of their purchasing power, it is clear that they were not small change.

There are thousands of various types and kinds of chinese coins, reviewing them all would take too much time, so here we come to the main subject we should focus on.

Just for extra information you should know that Chinese coin collectors have evolved a rating scale of ten. Those that are found in ten of thousand has a rating of ten, while in the other extreme, those that have known records for not more then five in the world received a rating of one. Those that exist with less than fifty are give a rating of two. Those extremely rare ones are not listed in these references or only show up in one or two. So, being listed or not is also an indicator of rarity. Most of these are donated to the museums and hard to come by in the open coin market. Most Chinese coin publications do include such rating, so such rating is a consensus of many collectors over a very long period. These ratings do vary with time and authors, but seldom exceed one order of magnitude.

To conclude, as already said there are a large assortment of different ancient chinese coins, therefore remember one important rule: these days, the skill to fake coins have considerably improved. The rarer the coin, the higher the chance for forgery.

Talking about famous coins around the World it would be a great mistake not to start with an ancient Greece time. The past of Ancient Greek coinage can be divided into three time periods, the Archaic, the Classical and the Hellenistic. The Archaic period ranges from the introduction of coinage to the Greek world in about 600 BCE until the Persian Wars in about 480 BCE. The Classical period then began, and lasted until the conquests of Alexander the Great in about 330 BC, which began the Hellenistic period, extending until the Roman absorption of the Greek world in the 1st century BCE. The Greeks cities continued to produce their own coins for several more centuries under Roman rule, called Roman provincial coins.

Looking deeply into Archaic period. Coins were invented in either the Kingdom of Lydia, now in modern day western Turkey, or in Ionia, in about 650-600 BCE (they were independently invented in China and India in about 600 BCE). A significant source of the metal used in these coins was the river Pactolus close to Sardis where there were alluvial deposits of gold mixed with as much as 40% silver and some copper; such a gold-silver mix is called electrum. What's more, the earliest coins were made of electrum with a standardized 55% gold, 45 silver and 1-2% copper concentration and had either no design or some apparently random surface striations on one side and a punch impression on the other.

More to the point, an initial bimetallic currency of pure gold and silver coins was introduced during the reign of King Croesus in Sardis (561-547 BCE) using a design of a lion or a lion and bull on one side; the other side remained a punch mark. By this time, coinage had spread to Greece proper and to the many Greek colonies spread from the Black Sea to Sicily and southern Italy.

During the "Archaic period" coins were reasonably crude by later standards. Generally, they were small disk-shaped lumps of gold, silver, or bronze, stamped with a geometric design or symbol to indicate its city of origin. As coining techniques improved, coins became more standardized as flat circular objects and the convention of putting a representation of the patron deity of the issuing city became established. Animal symbols such as the bees (sacred to Artemis) of Ephesus, turtles of Aegina, or the owl (sacred to Athena) of Athens were also widely used. The Greek world was divided into at least a hundred self-governing cities and towns (in Greek, poleis), and most of these issued their own coins. Some coins circulated widely beyond their polis, indicating that they were being used in inter-city trade; the first example appears to have been the silver drachm of Aegina. As such coins circulated more widely, coins of other cities came increasingly to be minted to the same weight standard (the weight standard of the Aeginetan drachma was 6.1 g) although marked with the symbols of the issuing city. This is rather like today's Euro coins, which are recognisably from a particular country, but usable all over the Euro zone.

Besides, various weight standards coincided; these may well have indicated different trade alliances. In about 510 BC Athens began producing a fine silver tetradrachm (four drachm) coin. As Athens and Aegina were hostile, this was minted to a different weight standard, the "Attic" standard drachm of 4.3 g. Over time, Athens' plentiful supply of silver from the mines at Laurion and its increasing dominance in trade made this the pre-eminent standard. Tetradrachms on this weight standard continued to be a widely used coin (often the most widely used) through the classical period, by Alexander, and by the Hellenistic monarchs. The word drachm means "a handful". Drachmae could be divided into six obols, from the Greek word for a spit of iron.

The "Classical period" saw Greek coinage reach a high level of technical and aesthetic quality. Larger cities now produced a range of fine silver and gold coins, most bearing a portrait of their patron god or goddess, or a legendary hero, on one side, and a symbol of the city on the other. Some coins employed a visual pun: coins from Rhodes featured a rose, since the Greek word for rose is rhodon. The use of inscriptions on coins also began, usually the name of the issuing city. The wealthy cities of Sicily produced some especially fine coins. The large silver decadrachm (ten drachm) coin from Syracuse is regarded by many collectors as the finest coin produced in the ancient world, perhaps ever.

The use of coins for propaganda purposes was a Greek invention. Coins are valuable, durable and pass through many hands. In an age without newspapers or other mass media, they were an ideal way of disseminating a political message. The first such coin was a commemorative decadrachm issued by Athens following the Greek victory in the Persian Wars. On these coins the owl of Athens was depicted facing the viewer with wings outstretched, holding a spray of olive leaves. The message was that Athens was powerful and victorious, but peace-loving.

The Hellenistic period was characterised by the spread of Greek culture across a large part of the known world. Greek-speaking kingdoms were established in Egypt and Syria, and for a time also in Iran and as far east as what is now Afghanistan and northwestern India. Greek traders spread Greek coins across this vast area, and the new kingdoms soon began to produce their own coins. Because these kingdoms were much larger and wealthier than the Greek city states of the classical period, their coins tended to be more mass-produced, as well as larger, and more frequently in gold. They often lacked the aesthetic delicacy of coins of the earlier period.

Still, some of the Greco-Bactrian coins, and those of 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: the largest gold coin was minted by Eucratides (reigned 171–145 BC), the largest silver coin by the Indo-Greek king Amyntas (reigned c. 95–90 BC). The portraits "show a degree of individuality never matched by the often bland depictions of their royal contemporaries further West" (Roger Ling, "Greece and the Hellish World"). The most striking new feature of Hellenistic coins was the use of portraits of living people, namely of the kings themselves. This practice had begun in Sicily, but was disapproved of by other Greeks as showing hubris (pride). But the kings of Ptolemaic Egypt and Seleucid Syria had no such scruples, and issued magnificent gold coins adorned with their own portraits, with the symbols of their state on the reverse. The names of the kings were frequently inscribed on the coin as well. This established a pattern for coins which has persisted ever since: a portrait of the king, usually in profile and striking a heroic pose, on the obverse, with his name beside him, and a coat of arms or other symbol of state on the reverse.

All Greek coins were hand-made, rather than milled as modern coins are. The design for the obverse was carved (in reverse) into a block of iron. The design of the reverse was carved into a similar punch. The blank gold, silver or bronze planchet, heated to make it soft, was then placed between these two and the punch struck hard with a hammer, "punching" the design onto both sides of the coin. This is a fairly crude technique and produces a high failure rate, so the high technical standards achieved by the best Greek coins - perfect centering of the image on the disk, even relief all over the coin, sharpness of edges - is a remarkable testament to Greek perfectionism.

Nowadays, exclusive, best looking Greek coins are rare and expensive, and most part of them can only be seen in museums, of which the National Numismatic Museum in Athens, the British Museum and the American Numismatic Society are among the finest. An active market in both high quality and common ancient Greek coins exists, dominated by on-line auction houses in the United States and Europe. What is more, hoards of Greek coins are still being found in Europe and the Middle East, and many of the coins in these hoards find their way onto the market, often with the help of the Internet. Coins are the only art form from the Ancient world which are common enough and, I would say, durable enough to be within the reach of ordinary collectors.

Initially, I would like to talk about such topics as: coins, collecting coins, coins in the beginning, their history and types. Every serious coin collector firslty should know the main theory of this wonderful leisure pursuit. So lets start!

A coin is a piece of hard material, usually metal or a metallic material, by and large in the shape of a disc, and as a rule issued by a government. Coins are used as a form of money in transactions of various kinds, from the everyday circulation coins to the storage of vast amounts of bullion coins. In the present day, coins and banknotes make up the cash forms of all modern money systems. Coins made for circulation (general monetized use) are usually used for lower-valued units, and banknotes for the higher values; also, in most money systems, the highest value coin is worth less than the lowest-value note. The face value of circulation coins is usually higher than the gross value of the metal used in making them, but this is no longer generally the case with historical circulation coins made of precious metals. For example, the historical Eagle contained .48375 troy ounce of gold and has a face value of only ten U.S. dollars, but the market value of the coin, due to its metal content, is now many times the face amount.

Exceptions to the rule of coin face-value being higher than content value, also occur for some non-monetized "bullion coins" made of silver or gold (and, rarely, other metals, such as platinum or palladium), intended for collectors or investors in precious metals. For examples of modern gold collector/investor coins, the United States mints the American Gold Eagle, Canada mints the Canadian Gold Maple Leaf, and South Africa mints the Krugerrand. The American Gold Eagle has a face value of US$50, and the Canadian Gold Maple Leaf coins also have nominal (purely symbolic) face values (e.g., C$50 for 1 oz.); but the Krugerrand does not.

Historically, a great number of coinage metals (including alloys) and other materials have been used practically, impractically, 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.

For a long time coins have been linked to the concept of money, as reflected by the fact that in other languages the words "coin" and "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).

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 any 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 and the 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 nor fiat values, and are never more than symbolic numbers. Most coins presently are made of a base metal, and their value comes from their status as fiat money. This means that the value of the coin is decreed by government fiat (law), and thus is determined by the free market only as national currencies are subjected to arbitrage in international trade. This causes such coins to be monetary tokens 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 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 currency exchange rates, similar to the case for the international market exchange values which determines the value of metals which back commodity 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, 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, US nickel, and pre-1982 US penny. 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. In fact, the United States Mint, in anticipation of this practice, implemented new interim rules on December 14, 2006, subject to public comment for 30 days, which criminalize 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.

To differentiate these two types of coins, as well as from other forms of tokens which have been used as money, some monetary scholars have attempted to define three criteria that an object must meet to be a "true coin". These criteria are:

- It must be made of a valuable material, and trade for close to the market value of that material.
- It must be of a standardized weight and purity.
- It must be marked to identify the authority that guarantees the content.

The question of the world's first coin has long been and still is debated. Among numismatists, it is debated whether the world's first coins originated in Lydia, China, or India (where coins were known as karshapana). One early coin from Caria, Asia Minor, includes a legend "I am the badge of Phanes," though most of the early Lydian pieces have no writing on them, just symbolic animals. 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 Ephesos, also called the Ephesian Artemision (which would later evolve into one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world). Many early Lydian coins were undoubtedly struck (manufactured) under the authority of private individuals and are thus more akin to tokens than true coins, though because of their numbers it's evident that some were official state issues, with King Alyattes of Lydia being the most frequently mentioned originator of coinage. The first Indian coins were minted around the 6th century BC by the Mahajanapadas of the Indo-Gangetic Plain. The coins of this period were punch marked coins called Puranas, Karshapanas or Pana. The Mahajanapadas that minted their own coins included Gandhara, Kuntala, Kuru, Panchala, Shakya, Surasena, and Surashtra. Some argue that Indian coins were developed from Western prototypes, which the Indians came in contact with through Babylonian traders. The first European coin to use Arabic numerals to date the year minted was the Swiss 1424 St. Gallen silver Plappart.

Numismatic or coin collecting is one of the most interesting hobbies, which can be also very rewarding. Coin collecting involves the collecting or trading of coins or other forms of legally minted currency. Frequently collected coins include those that were in circulation for only a brief time, coins minted with errors, or especially beautiful or historically interesting pieces. Coin collecting can be differentiated from numismatics in that the latter is the study of currency, though both are obviously closely related. Coin collectors often begin by saving coins they received in circulation but found interesting. These may be the remnants of change from an international trip or an old coin found in circulation. Over time, if their interests increase, chance will not be sufficient to satisfy the demands for new specimens, and a potentially expensive hobby is born. Some become dedicated generalists and look for a few examples of everything. If they have enough resources, this can result in an astounding collection, as that of King Farouk of Egypt, who collected everything (not just coins). Some are completists, wanting an example of everything within a certain set. For example, Louis Eliasberg was the only collector thus far to assemble a complete set of known coins of the United States.

Coin collecting can become a competitive activity, as evidenced recently by Registry Sets. Registry sets are sets of coins published by numismatic grading services. These include PCGS (Professional Coin Grading Service) and NGC (Numismatic Guarantee Corporation.) The grading services assess Registry Sets by their completeness and by their numerical grade. This can lead to astronomical prices as dedicated collectors strive for the very best examples of each date and mint mark combination. Most collectors determine that they must focus their financial resources on a narrower interest. Therefore, some collectors focus on coins of a certain nation or historic period, collect coins from various nations, or settle on error coins. Still others might focus on exonumia such as currency, tokens or challenge coins.

Many collectors effort to acquire an sample from every country which has issued a coin. In contrast to those who collect coins from all countries, many collect coins from only one country. The country selected is often their own. Rather than collecting one example of a type, some collectors prefer to collect by year. For example, they might collect one Lincoln cent for every year from 1909 to the present. This is probably one of the most practical ways to collect US currency. Most bookstores sell specially designed books, or coin albums, for the purpose of collecting coins by year. Many collectors consider that different mint marks give sufficient differentiation to justify separate representation in their collection. This increases the number of examples needed to complete a collection from one per year to several per year. Some mintmarks are more rare than others. This is what makes collecting different mintmarks exciting for collectors. As mints issues many thousands or millions of any given coin, there are generally multiple sets of dies used. Occasionally these dies will be slightly different. Generally this is in a very small detail, such as the number of leaves on the ear of corn on the recent US Wisconsin state quarter. Varieties are more common on older coins, when the coin dies were hand carved. Often a collection consists of an example of major design variants for a period of time in one country. Collectors with an interest in a subject (e.g. airplanes or cats) may collect only coins depicting that interest. For some, the composition of the coin itself is interesting. For example there are several collectors of only bimetallic coins. Normally only precious metals like gold, silver and platinum fit this category. Many collectors restrict themselves to coins issued after the 18th or 19th century, while others collect ancient and medieval coins. Coins of Roman, Byzantine, Greek, Indian, Celtic, Parthian, Merovingian, Ostrogothic, and ancient Israelite origin are amongst the more popular ancient coins collected. Specialties tend to vary greatly, but some approaches include the collection of coins minted during a particular emperor's reign or a representative coin from each emperor. Coins are often a reflection of the events of the time in which they are produced, so coins issued during historically significant periods are exceptionally interesting to collectors.