Talk:Coin/Archive 1

Inflation and debasement
Why is the section on debasement so heavy on US trivia - shouldn't this be somewhere else as this much detail about other currencies as well would be a little deadening. I didn't want to just hack it around as I don't know enough to produce a sensible alternative. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.111.27.50 (talk) 12:44, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

I have removed a graph showing cumulative inflation and some unsourced/unsupported text about the effect of leaving the silver standard on inflation. Using a graph of cumulative data is very confusing for most people, since they think they are looking at a rate. Compare these two graphs:





If you look at the RATES, you can see there were higher inflation rates in several periods before the US left the silver standard. The difference between these two graphs is the same as the difference between THESE two graphs:





This is, in my opinion, a very deceptive way to present these data. Any cumulative distribution is going to look like a skyrocketing rate unless the reader is very clear on exactly what is being shown. Please do not restore this material without reviewing this problem. Thanks, Wachholder0 16:17, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

I think it would be better in the first sentence to say that coins are issued by "an authority" rather than "a government," as many private (non-government) mints have existed. I'd appreciate hearing at least one confirmation of this view. --SMetsker
 * While it's true that private mints have issued coin-like pieces of metal, no private mint issue (AFAIK) has ever gained legal tender status, which is a key part of the definition of a "coin". Without a status as money, it's just another piece of metal.--chris.lawson 16:56, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Can you substantiate the claim that part of the definition of "coin" is that the object has legal tender status? Actually, I think that's a mistake; Look at any modern coin magazine, and you'll see ads for items called "coins" that are not (and never were) legal tender. --SMetsker 13 August 2006
 * The article itself defines a coin as something to be used as money, a fact with which the dictionary agrees. "Money" implies legal tender status by any reasonable definition. Private-issue tokens do not meet this standard, and therefore are not coins. Furthermore, just because an advertisement claims an object to be a coin does not make it so; most of these advertisements also propose that the item advertised has some great collector value, which is almost universally untrue.--chris.lawson 22:57, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Is it true that coins are generally back by a country's reserves? That is are most countries still on a gold or silver standard? --rmhermen

I removed:


 * Usually, the value of such coins is guaranteed by being backed by that government's reserves.

I would be very surprized if this were true. As far as I know, nearly all coins in the world today are unbacked (or minimally-backed) fiat currencies like the US dollar. --LDC


 * The US dollar isn't really "unbacked", but what is is backed by is left as an exercise for the reader. The US government neither backs nor creates the US dollar. Who does? -º¡º

What is being measured by the graph in this article? Could the person who added it provide a title or explanation? -- llywrch 02:05 Apr 20, 2003 (UTC)


 * cumulative inflation, I believe.


 * price levels (same thing as cumulative inflation more or less) - the graph now has an caption. -º¡º

Not to be nationalistic or xenophobic or bigoted or anything like that, but as this is the English-speaking Wikipedia, perhaps we can get an image of an English-speaking country's coin, such as a US cent or a GB penny, or even an AU dollar? I don't know any countries which use the Euro and speak English, apart from Ireland; but that's Ireland. --195.92.67.78 22:31, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

Done: Changed it to a Canadian quarter. --thirty-seven 06:54, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Not revaluing currency is not unique to U.S.
From the article: What is unique to the United States, among the developed countries, is that the U.S. has never revised its coinage system to accommodate this inflation, and as a result, coins in America today are scarcely regarded as "money" in any practical sense.

To the best of my knowledge, Canadian, Australian, New Zealand, and British coinage systems have never been revised to accommodate inflation. Britain decimalized its currency, but this had nothing to do with inflation and did nothing to change to value of its currency's base unit (pound). When Australia and New Zealand decimalized, they actually devalued their base unit by 50%. I suppose you could consider Australia and New Zealand removing pennies from circulation as revising their coinage systems to accommodate inflation. However, I assumed you were talking about bigger changes, like France decreeing that 100 old Francs == 1 New Franc. In any case, the UK and Canada still have pennies in circulation. The article needs to be rephrased to reflect this, to be accurate and less Amero-centric. --thirty-seven 06:42, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Changes made --PatClay 21:15, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Silver coinage != Fiat money
I have removed this passage: ''It should be remembered, however, that for most of the era of U.S. silver coinage, such coins were actually fiat money, because the value of silver was relatively low. For example, in 1960, the silver in a dime was worth less than four cents.''

I think this is an oversimplification that goes as far as to mislead the reader. From 1792 to 1873 (remember the crime of 1873) there was free coinage of silver that kept the USD and Silver tightly linked. From 1873 to 1893 (and the panic of 1893) silver was freely coinable within certain constraints. In 1893 Silver lost coinability. Now, does this mean that US silver coinage from this point forward was not fiat money? Maybe, maybe not. It depends on if you are using the "completely unbacked" definition of "fiat" or not. Either way, a dime was still 2.5 grams of 90% silver. Finally, the average price of Silver in 1960 was $0.92/oz, which I believe means there was still 7.4 cents of silver in a dime (not less than four cents as the passage suggested). - O^O

Hey
I just wanted to ask if damaging coins is illegal. Otherone of Sion 08:51, 27 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Nevermind. Otherone of Sion 08:51, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Which way does the Monarch face?
I once saw on a TV show that it's traditional for each successive monarch to face the opposite direction from the previous on their portrait on coins. Well for British coins anyway. For example Queen Elizabeth faces to the right on all British coins, and when(if?) Charles gets to be king, he will face to the left. I don't know if its true... But if it is, it'd be nice to have something mentioned about it here. This TV show also claimed that one particular king (forget which) didn't like that particular side of his face so swapped over (thus creating a rare form of coin worth a lot to collectors) -- Mick (collector of worthless trivia (not coins))
 * That fact (successive monarchs facing different directions) is already mentioned in the British coinage article. --thirty-seven 09:16, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

The banknote with the lowest (absolute) value and the coin with the highest (absolute) value
I think it would be interesting to mention in the article which banknote has currently the lowest and which has the highest value out of the currencies of the Earth (considering their absolute, mid-market values, compared to each other). Besides, I'd be happy to know which coin has the highest value out of the currencies (excluding commemorative coins).

If you want to react or ask questions (instead of inserting the information into the article), maybe it would be useful to do so on the talk page of "Banknote" where I asked this same question. Adam78 20:48, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

confusing article
this article is more than a little confusing. it would be best to clarify that all contemporary currency is 'fiat', and that there is no connection between the metallic value of a coin and the signorage assigned to it, nor has there been this connection, anywhere in the world, since nixon ended bretton-woods around 1973. this prohibition is also reinforced by official IMF policy.

also, it would be better to be accurate in terms of (fiat) dollar values assigned to contemporary investor coins - an ounce of platinum from the us mint is called '$100', an ounce of gold '$50'. both values are about 1/12 of current prices. it might also be useful to mention that the US federal govt still officially values gold at about this amount, even going so far as to unerstate american gold reserves in official documentation by less than 1/10 of market value.

a thorough article might want to mention the 'noble' isle of mann unit as an amusing example of a non-fiat contemporary currency, and may also want to link to the wikis which discuss how the current metal 'melt' values of american pennies and nickels is actually higher than the assigned value. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.109.191.17 (talk) 22:15, 12 February 2007 (UTC).

Exergue Mergefrom
Exergue really doesn't stand on its own as an article, and already has a definition in Wiktionary. Exergue could also possibly redirect to numismatics, or perhaps medal, but I'd say coin is superior to both. ENeville 15:44, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Viewing the sides
The orientation of the obverse with respect to the reverse differs between countries. Some coins have coin orientation, where the coin must be flipped vertically to see the other side; other coins, such as British coins, have medallic orientation, where the coin must be flipped horizontally to see the other side.

Wouldn't it be better to specify that this is to view the side correctly rather than just to see it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Special:Contributions/ (talk)

Aside from being Confusing, the History of Coinage is also Incorrect
As to the reference that a single Indian historian believes that India produced the first coinage in the 6th century, it has been demonstrated by numismaticists that the Lydian coin was developed circa 650 BCE, and other city-states in Greece such as Aegina and Athens had developed coins as well by the mid-6th century. There are probably more than 100 books that cite, so I do not know why this article cites the earliest coin as being 100 years later. By any standards, it is misleading and erroneous. While there should be mention of this finding, being that only one historian cites it, makes the contention dubious in and of itself. Secondly, it is historically incorrect to place it as the earliest coin, since there are several coins already in existence, that have been numismatically dated to the time of its appearance. This needs to be corrected to reflect what is currently known about the history of coinage. Stevenmitchell (talk) 02:47, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Images
I've removed the blurry photo of "US coins" (which look a bit odd? I'm not American...). There are still too many images crowding the lower part of the article. I may try to improve it a bit more. Robertbyrne (talk) 03:32, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

"Fairness" of belgian euro coins
"A widely publicized example of an asymmetrical coin which will not produce "fair" results in a flip is the Belgian one euro coin[18]." I read the article given as a reference and I don't think it supports what is being stated here. Basically it concludes that the sample size used by the students (250 coin spins) was small enough that the result of 56% heads would not be particularly unlikely even with "fair" coins. Sounds to me like one of those "slow news day" fluff stories.--Eloil (talk) 07:40, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Very odd, there's no article for "Coin counter" ???
Well this is quite strange I must say. I am making a sub article at coin counter, but I'd hope the experts from this article can help improve this tiny stub. DMahalko (talk) 22:05, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Your stub is a duplicate of Currency-counting machine... JoshXF (talk) 09:43, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

China
I removed this section:
 * The chinese seems to invent the first metal coins before 1000BC,in a tomb near Anyang At that time,the coin itself was a mock of more earlier used cowry shells,so it was named as Bronze shell.

Apart from the language, that looks like a kind of machine translation, the first ref is all Chinese, the second one says Chinese coinage didn't start before 540 BC, except for earlier, but less coinlike metal traders' tokens, and the third ref as far as I see (it's very long) doesn't mention coinage before the Han dynasty, centuries later. Before putting it in again (with better wording of course) a discussion on the, talk page should be needed. Glatisant (talk) 23:19, 11 May 2009 (UTC)


 * The second said the chinese use the metal coin from 900BC,the metal trade token,which exist in Shang Dynasty.and Why it said 540BC is because,from then on there are figures in the round metal trade token to identify itself with later coin money.It's quite obvious from 900BC,there are already metal coin in China--Ksyrie(Talkie talkie) 07:00, 12 May 2009 (UTC)


 * For the third page,you try to search the key word Bronze shell,here you can find the ref--Ksyrie(Talkie talkie) 07:05, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Spelling error
I'm sorry - I can't get into the caption reading 'An anvil dye as used for minting hammered coins' (under 'First Coins'. So I can't edit it myself, and have to pas over to some sort of better editor than me. Please fix this.

Surely it should read die rather than dye ? - if only for internal consistencyt within the article.

MacAuslan (talk) 21:54, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

First coins
I've deleting this first paragraph under "First coins," which previously read:


 * Coins have three main characteristic in order to be named like that. They have to be standardized in weight, they have to be produced in large quantities, and they must have the mark of the authority that produces them. In that sense, the first coins were produced in Aegina island of Greece (700BC ), and in Ephesus of Lydia (650 BC).

Whoever added this just repeated the beginning of this article in the first two sentences. In the third and last sentence, there were several significant errors. The first coins weren't produced in Aegina. The reference cited doesn't support this but instead says coins of Aegina were the first European coins. The reference cited, Barclay Head's Historia Numorum, is more than 100 years old and long ago was superseded by information from newer research. Thus the 700 BC date for the first Aegina coins is regarded by numismatists today as being too old. Finally, Ephesus was not in Lydia but in nearby Ionia, with Ephesus having been a Greek city state and Lydia having been a non-Greek kingdom with Sardis as its capital.


 * Electrum coins have been absent from archeological finds in Sardis! Please stop this Sardis nonsense! 79.166.88.162 (talk) 15:22, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

I also added some material about the first European coins and the first Roman coins, and I tried tidying up this section a bit, for consistency.

Reidgold (talk) 21:10, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm deleting the following two sentences, which someone recently added to the beginning of the "First coins" section:


 * Aristotle states that possibly the first coins were struck by Demodike of Kyme who had married Midas, king of Phrygia, and had by him a son named Agamemnon [3] According to the British Museum Catalog of Greek Coins [4], the turtle coins of Aegina date 700 BC.

Aristotle isn't considered a reliable source on the first coinage by anyone who has written (in print) about the subject of the origin of coinage because he lived nearly three centuries after the fact. The British Museum reference that's used above is 130 years old and is considered to be long out of date and superseded by more recent research. The first turtle coins of Aegina are considered by numismatists today to have been minted ca. 550 BC, not 700 BC, based on numismatic, archeological, and historical evidence (See Sear, Sayles, Kraay, Anthony, Carradice, etc.).

Reidgold (talk) 03:51, 29 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Aristotle was born 384 BC, 166 years after the fact of the so called first coins of Lydia. He is one of the more reliable sources of the antiquity and he is the founded of many nowadays sciences. His statement is must more credible than the speculations of people who lived 2600 year after! 79.166.88.162 (talk) 15:15, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

More mistakes. 384 BC was NOT 166 years before the first coins of Lydia, which would have made the first coins of Lydia appear c. 550 BC. That's when the first Europeans coins appeared. Lydian coins appeared about 50 years earlier, according to the most commonly believed scenario among those who have studied and written about this in detail in recent years. Aristotle is NOT one of the most reliable sources on ancient history and isn't considered a historian at all but a philosopher and scientist. This is the reason, as pointed out, that he's not used as an expert source on the first coinage by experts. This person says what's happening today is speculations of people living 2,600 years later, but this is inane. Scholars today base their statements on archeological, numismatic, and historical evidence, and though that evidence isn't exhaustive, there's enough of it to lead to conclusions with as high enough likelihood of verisimilitude as in many other areas of numismatics. The evidence against what Aristotle wrote, that Kyme may have been the source of the first coinage, is overwhelming.

The person who wrote in this Wikipedia article, as it now stands, that electrum coins have been absent from archeological finds in Sardis is misrepresenting the very sources that he quoted. These coins have been absent only from the Sardis agora, or marketplace, not from the Sardis area or Lydia as a whole. The reason they've been absent (or largely absent -- we don't know for sure because of the largely secretive nature of coin finds today) is that they were likely not used in commerce and industry. The statement that it's an indisputable fact that coins of this era have been absent from Sardis archeological finds is just wrong.
 * A coin, by definition, is an object used to facilitate commerce and exchange. As long as you admit the fact that they were likely not used in commerce or industry, the were NOT coins!. Lion coins were likely medals or ceremonial objects rather than coins (actually the oldest of them have been discovered not in Lydia, but in the temple of Ephesos). 79.166.101.133 (talk) 19:55, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Plate Camiros Louvre Bj2169-14.jpg displays lions on an electrum plate from Rhodes, ca'' 630-620 BCE (Louvre Museum)]] Chelone (talk) 21:11, 9 January 2010 (UTC)


 * And also, very important, Lion coins were not coins because they were not standardized in weight. 79.166.101.133 (talk) 20:08, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

As has been pointed out, nobody publishing today contends, based on the evidence, that the first coins were from Aegina c. 700 BC as Barcay Head believed 130 years ago. The person who wrote this in the Wikipedia article as it now stands points out that "other numismatists" believe this. This was true, but more than a century ago! The evidence against Aegina being the source of the first coinage, evidence uncovered over the past 130 years, is also overwhelming.

This is all another example Wikipedia living up to its worst reputation, with people who aren't expert insisting they're right based on research that at best can be described as cursory. Those doing this show clear evidence of not having read the sources (those doing the primary research) or not understanding them, or using out-of-copyright online sources (such as Head), which are often out-of-date and which have often been superseded long ago.

To the person or people doing this, read the references here: http://rg.ancients.info/lion/references.html. This is a bibliography I put together and used for the surrounding site, and used for articles about this subject I wrote for the Numismatist and the Journal of the Journal of the Classical and Medieval Numismatic Society, and will use for a book I'm writing on the subject as well, along with the work of those currently doing archeological and numismatic studies on these coins who I've been interviewing.

I'll make one more attempt, my third and last, over the next couple of weeks to present this information as the founders of Wikipedia intended -- balanced, accurate, reliable, up-to-date. If those who keep changing this continue to do so, I'll let them have at it and quit this nonsense. Those who are making these changes -- using Aristotle and Head as reliable sources on this subject -- do present an interesting phenomenon, and I'll try to incorporate mention them as well as a few other sources that in the past were used as experts on the subject of the first coinage.

Reidgold (talk) 07:05, 2 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Stop advertise yourself and answer to the below questions.
 * 1) An object that is not used in commerce and exchanges can be considered a coin?
 * 2) An object that is not standardized in weight and measures, can be considered a coin?
 * 3) An object that has not the mark of the authority that produces it, can be considered a coin?
 * If your answer is yes to one or more of the above questions, no more conversation is needed. You are just trying to change the definition of the word "coin", in order to justify your cause. 79.166.101.133 (talk) 20:31, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Silence please Chelone (talk) 23:27, 5 January 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't see why there should be this fixation with standardised weights. Fixed weight is obviously important if a coin's worth is based on it's precious-metal value, but modern coinage tends to fail that test. Fixed weight is not the defining feature of a coin, any more than fixed size is a defining feature of a banknote. Defined weights and sizes tend to be used as an aid to recognition, but if some ancient trader was issuing trading tokens as punched tokens of metal sheet holding an issuer's stamp, they could still be coins even if the thickness and resulting weight of the metal used was somewhat haphazard due to the crudeness of the process. What's more important is that the nominal exchange value is specified, and that the people using the coins recognise them as valid trading currency.
 * Also, if an old precious-metal coin had a stamp certifying its weight, I'm not sure how bothered traders would be as to how that weight was divided between precise diameter and thickness measurements, as long as it had the correct amount of gold/etc, was recognisably genuine, and you could spend it. For precious metals, the weight and certifying authority would probably have been more important to traders than precise dimensions. ErkDemon (talk) 13:53, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

I just took a look again at this section on "First coins." The amateur mistakes continue. This section suffers most from an overreliance on Web sources, which are disproportionately out-of-copyright sources that can freely be copied, in this case Barclay Head, Percy Gardner, Herodotus, and Aristotle. These are sources from long ago that don't factor in new knowledge uncovered from a significant amount of more recent research, which with numismatics involves hoards, findspots, die studies, metrology, and so on. Books and journal articles are where you find this research, not out-of-copyright authors.

These mistakes appear to be from one person who doesn't sign in here but who has the IP address of 79.166.101.133. I won't correct the mistakes again because 79.166.101.133 will no doubt, again, just undo the corrections. But for those with an interest in the scholarship, here's a list of the most flagrant mistakes:

1. No numismatist today gives Aristotle any credence regarding the first coins. The numismatic and historical evidence has absolutely refuted what he wrote about this. Placing Aristotle as the first source on this makes no sense unless you're writing not a history of coins but a history of numismatic knowledge, that is, how knowledge about coinage has changed over time, which is not what this little section on "First coins" is all about.

2. It's absolutely not clear that Herodotus wrote that the Lydians were the first to mint coins of two different metals, gold and silver. What he wrote is *famously* ambiguous, as has been pointed out by scholar after scholar. He could have meant this, or he could have been referring to the earlier coins that combined gold and silver, i.e. electrum.

3. The fact that coins from the seventh and sixth centuries BC have been absent from archeological finds in Sardis, capital of Lydia, is no proof whatsoever that Lydia didn't invent the first coins. I included the footnote for this, and then someone changed it into this error. What this fact means is only that the first coins weren't initially used for commerce in the Sardis marketplace, as I said initially before someone changed this.

4. It is not true that a coin, by definition, is an object used to facilitate commerce and exchanges, as 79.166.101.133 indicates. A medium of exchange is one of the purposes of money, but only one of them. Coins, as money, are also used as a store of wealth and standard of value, as pointed out in no doubt every or just about every introductory book on coins and money written over the past century. These are the three main purposes of money. Coins, as money, don't necessarily have to be "used to facilitate commerce and exchanges" to be coins.

5. No numismatist writing over the past half century at least, from what I've seen, considers the coins of Aegina to be the world's oldest. This is really old information that someone here got from relying only on the Web, specifically Barclay Head, who wrote more than a century ago. At the time Head was widely regarded as the world's premier numismatist or at least among them. But a huge amount of numismatic and historical evidence uncovered since then long ago has conclusively put to rest this and other notions of his, and including this here as something that "other numismatists" believe is absolutely misleading.

6. It's not true that Lydian electrum coins were not standardized by weight, as 79.166.101.133 indicates. They were, in fact, highly standardized. The electrum coins of other kingdoms, city states, and rulers did use other weight standards, which was the same as well with later gold, silver, and bronze coins. There were many different weight standards used in the ancient world, with some unification periodically created by empires such as the Athenian, Alexander's, and Rome, among others.

7. It's not true that "actually the oldest of them have been discovered not in Lydia, but in the temple of Ephesos)," as 79.166.101.133 indicates. Yes, Lydian electrum coins, as well as other coins, were famously uncovered at the Temple of Ephesos. But this is by no means whatsoever the only place that Lydian electrum coins have been uncovered, and to say that they haven't been uncovered in Lydia is remarkably ignorant of a very basic aspect of this entire subject.

Reidgold (talk) 22:58, 5 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Christopher Howgego in pages 1 - 4 of Ancient History from Coins does a pretty good job of summing up many of the arguments, pro and con, discussed in this section.

Zyxwv99 (talk) 20:46, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

"It's not true that Lydian electrum coins were not standardized by weight, as 79.166.101.133 indicates. They were, in fact, highly standardized." No, they were not standardized in terms of either weight or composition. The coins varied so much that almost no two were the same.Vilhelmo (talk) 02:46, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

I last tried to make corrections to this section more than three years ago... over a six-month period. With every correction I made, the same yahoo (79.166.101.133) deleted it and reinstated the original mistake, all discussed above. But someone else or some other people have come along since then and were able to successfully correct the mistakes, with the corrections having stuck this time. My faith is humanity is restored.

About the above statement made by Vilhelmo, it's not true that ancient coins were not standardized by weight or composition. You're lumping all ancient coins of the same period together. In any given city-state or empire at a particular point in time there was significant standardization. With these first coins, these Lydian lion head coins, for instance, the weight of the most common and largest denomination was very close to 4.7 grams and the gold content very close to 55 percent, according to the finds and the metallurgical studies. Electrum coins of OTHER city-states or empires at about this time and slightly later used different weight standards and had a different gold content. What is also true is that in any given city-state or empire the weight standard and composition changed over time (this has happened in modern times as well). It's also true that because sources of the gold and silver used to mint the coins could change and because the refining technology wasn't as sophisticated as today, the standardization wasn't as exact as we have today, more so with silver than gold. It's also true that because these coins were struck by hand, the appearance differences among the same coin type were much greater than today. But with silver coins, and especially with gold coins because of gold's higher intrinsic value, weight and composition was controlled as tightly as possible with the technology that existed at the time.

There doesn't seem to be a way to edit the Notes and references section of this article. Anybody know how? There's one website citation that's designed only as "Accessed December 2009." All the other website citations are properly referenced by name and author as well as time of retrieval. Reidgold (talk) 04:49, 23 October 2013 (UTC)


 * To edit the Notes and references you have to edit the inline reference. E.g to edit the "Accessed December 2009" reference you have to modify the ref in the iron age section. —  Reatlas  (talk)  07:38, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

any copper coins still minted?
Do any countries still mint any mostly-copper coins for general circulation?

When did various countries abandon mostly-copper coins? -96.237.79.6 (talk) 16:31, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
 * US 1982
 * Canada 1996
 * UK 1992

Unusual denominations - 15 kopek...
Typical denominations for coins (and banknotes) are 1, 2, 5 and 25 units (cents, rubles or whatever), and any of these multiplied by a power of 10. But the article mentions a Bahamian 15 cents coin, and I recall from a visit to the Soviet Union in 1989 that 3 and 15 were common denominations then and there. I wonder, could anyone find sources and add info on such unusual denominations - be it multiples of 3 or otherwise?--Nø (talk) 19:59, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Coins with holes and non-metal coins
Two things should be mentioned: Coins with holes in them (popular e.g. in modern Denmark and ancient China) and coins made partially or completely from non-metals (if I'm not mistaken, East Germany used coins with cores made of organic polymers, derisively called "plastic money" by the population). -- 77.189.23.65 (talk) 15:08, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Isaac Newton and milled edges
It is a myth that Isaac Newton invented the milled-edge coin or that he had much of anything to do with the Great Recoinage: "A third legend false credits Newton with the great silver recoinage. The principles were settled and the work started before he became warden, in which office he was responsible only for certain disciplines, proprieties, and prosecution of criminals; and the recoinage was over before his mastership." (Craig, p. 198).

Milled coins and the milled edge were invented on the continent and the technology was brought to England—with increasing levels of success—by a series of French engravers: Eloye Mestrell, Nicholas Briot, and, finally, Pierre Blondeau. (Challis, p. 329), (Feavearyear and Morgan, pp. 93-94), and (Craig, Chapter IX).

The mint converted to milled coins in the 1660s: "On 17 May 1661 the King in Council, to stop clipping, cutting and counterfeiting, ordered all coin to be struck as soon as possible by machinery, with grained or lettered edged." (Craig, p. 157).



—KHirsch (talk) 05:05, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Denomination always on the reverse?
Strangely enough, the article never says where the denomination is. In all coins I have ever seen it is on the reverse. Anyone know if there are/have been exception to this rule? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.71.16.90 (talk) 08:20, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Many ancient coins bore no mark of value. Vilhelmo (talk) 02:28, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

Coins as containers for digital currency
Respectfully, I would like to discuss the addition of a line or two to the "Features of Modern Coins" section. Bitcoins, being entirely digital, can be "stored" in (or on) a physical coin, and these physical coins can be used to buy or sell items in an entirely analog, physical exchange. Also, I think this is an extremely fascinating feature of modern coins: that their stored value can change. By this I mean that the amount of digital currency "stored" on a coin can change at any given point, as the physical coin is merely a token, a pointer, to a digital value. This person has created a physical Bitcoins, where each physical coin begins its life holding a fixed amount of digital currency. Funds can be added to this digital wallet at any time (thereby increasing the value of the coin), but to withdraw the funds from the physical coin, it must be damaged, and the hidden key within disclosed. In summary, a new "Feature of Modern Coins" is that they can hold the keys to digital funds, such that the value of the hard currency is no longer fixed. Thanks, Jtibble (talk) 00:26, 9 November 2012 (UTC)


 * I added a small blurb on Bitcoin and the Casascius coins, including image. Take a look and leave feedback. Cheers! Jtibble (talk) 07:44, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Introducing some structure to the jumbled "history" section
Considering the validity of most material cited, the section was in an almost unbelievable state of confusion. I suggest it should be structured along something like the following lines --dab (𒁳) 11:06, 29 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Bronze Age predecessors. These are tokens or ingots such as the Chinese "knife money", but going back to standardized ingots used as early (I suppose) as 1500 BC. These aren't "coins", they the historical context of using precious metal as "currency" from which coins evolved as a peculiar special case, which just happens to have been significant in retrospect.
 * The earliest Anatolian/Aegean coins. Discussion of what is the earliest known coin, the Phanes and Chelone coins, etc. Limited to the 7th or perhaps 7th to early 6th century. This section includes the possibility of cultic origin as "medals" of Apollo and/or Artemis.
 * Classical antiquity: The innovation spread very quickly, and anything after 550 BC should not be mixed with the question of innovation, but with the rapid spread to Greek and Persia soon after the innovation. Classical Greece, Achaemenid Empire, etc.
 * Hellenism and Roman era: so far completely absent apart from a brief mention of the earliest Roman coins.
 * Middle Ages: so far entirely absent apart from a brief mention, for some reason, of the first European coins with Arabic numerals
 * Early Modern and modern history?

It should also be pointed out that under Talk:Coin above, user Reidgold, three years ago, already pointed out the problems with the material on "earliest coins" which I still encountered in the live revision today. This is a typical case of WP:Anti-elitism. Instead of being grateful that somebody who knows what they are talking about is fixing the article, people with very rough google-based ideas are messing with their efforts. --dab (𒁳) 11:50, 29 January 2013 (UTC)
 * ReidGold is an ignorant hobbyist, he is not an archaeologist. Xarcheo (talk) 16:46, 29 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Christopher Howgego IS an archeologist, and he knows better. Please read books, before decide about the anti-elitism case. Xarcheo (talk) 17:02, 29 March 2013 (UTC)
 * From Ancient History from Coins By: Christopher Howgego http://www.questia.com/read/109057617/ancient-history-from-coins — Preceding unsigned comment added by Xarcheo (talk • contribs) 17:04, 29 March 2013 (UTC)
 * I am sorry, how is "ReidGold is an ignorant hobbyist" a reply to my post? What is going on here? My point is that the article was a complete mess, and I tried to provide some basic structure for the "history" section. This section still needs to be actually written as it mostly consists of a gallery, but at least the gallery is now referenced and presented in a sensible order. --dab (𒁳) 11:01, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

I was just reading through all of the Talk section here. The statements above by Xarcheo are both informative and unintentionally funny. They're wrong on several fronts: 1) What one is is only an approximation of what one knows. 2) Archeologists aren't necessarily expert on coinage. 3) Most archeologists in fact know little and care little about coinage, and many are antipathetic toward coinage, believing its collection and even its study contributes to looting and the destruction of archeological sites. 4) Howgego is an exception, but this particular book is far more about history than numismatics. 5) Howgego's book is NOT a book about the inception of coinage, covering it only briefly. 6) Howgego got a crucial aspect wrong about this subject, unnecessarily exaggerating, in stating that we know nothing about the function of the earliest coins when the reality is that there's plenty that we know, some with greater confidence, some with less. 7) There are many more important books and journal articles on the subject of the inception of coinage than Howgego's Ancient History from Coins, sources that deal specifically with this subject.

Dab has done a good job in cleaning up the truly flagrant errors that existed for years (!) in the "Iron Age" section of this article, which deals with the inception of coinage. These mistakes were made, and made over and over each time he deleted newer information, by someone who was relying solely on Web sources, which are skewed toward older, out-of-copyright books and other information. Much of the die study, hoard, findspot, and metrological evidence that's out there today about numismatics, representing the current state of knowledge, can't be found on the Web but only in books and journal articles. This of course also applies to many other subjects as well. There's nothing elitist about judiciously using the most current information about a particular subject and recognizing that this is a reality of the way much scholarship is still disseminated despite welcome changes over recent years in making it more widely available. Reidgold (talk) 05:42, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

Why would anyone issue coins at their bullion value?
Why would anyone take a piece of bullion, spend the time & money to coin it, if the value of the finished coin was the same as its bullion value? They would be operating at a loss. Vilhelmo (talk) 23:04, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I suppose that's what all coins really were, before anyone thought of them as mere tokens (like paper money). A trusted authority certifying the metal quality and weight of a circular disc of precious metal by its stamp, saving traders the trouble of weighing and testing it every time it is used in trade.--Nø (talk) 07:08, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

So you agree no coin is valued by the market price of the material from which it is made. All coins are fiat, debt tokens just like modern coins. Commodity Money does NOT exist. Vilhelmo (talk) 13:27, 8 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Please don't make assumptions about what I agree to (not that my beliefs matter here, really). By your logic, any state building infrastructure for public use is opearting at a loss.--Nø (talk) 15:09, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Early Coinage, Standardized Weights & Composition
The earliest known coins of Asia Minor dating from 6th or 7th Centuries BC (later those from Greece) were NOT standardized in terms of either weight or composition. So wide is the variation of these early coins that hardly any two are alike. Roman coins are no different. Although bearing marks of value, they display extreme irregularity in weight. Most experts are agreed that these early coins (and almost all coins for that matter) were tokens, whose value depended not on weight or composition, but by fiat. That being said, a coin can at least be sold as bullion, effectively putting a limit on how far its value can fall.

Why would anyone mint coins at bullion value? The mint would operate at a loss! Why would anyone bother? Vilhelmo (talk) 02:38, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Serious Errors
"Ancient and early medieval coins in theory had the value of their metal content, although there have been many instances throughout history of the metal content of coins being debased, so that the inferior coins were worth less in metal than their face value."

Ancient coins were NOT valued by their metallic content. There is NO evidence that they were. Rather, the issuer set a coins value by fiat. Taxes payable only in the sovereign's coin creates a demand for them and ensures their value.

Fiat money first arose in medieval China, with the jiaozi paper money. Early paper money was introduced in Europe in the later Middle Ages, but some coins continued to have the value of the gold or silver they contained throughout the Early Modern period.

"Fiat money" did NOT first arise in medieval China.

The first monetary systems of the Bronze Age were what we call "fiat" money systems. It was the temples & palaces (public institutions) of Mesopotamia who acquired, refined, standardized, issued & valued, by fiat, "silver money" as part of an overall schedule of price equivalencies comprising a system designed to manage resource flows & to denominate debts owed. Vilhelmo (talk) 21:06, 10 August 2013 (UTC)


 * I'm no expert, but it seems to me you want to challenge "conventional wisdom" here. That's fine, but it requires some good sources. Can you supply any?--Nø (talk) 12:04, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

The Archaeology of Money: Debt vs. Barter Theories of Money's Origins by Michael Hudson Vilhelmo (talk) 13:22, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Poor quality sources
The section entitled, "Bronze Age predecessors," is referenced with a group sources that are not suitable quality. See WP:RS for details as to what qualifies as good quallity sources. I have detailed the main problems below:


 * - This is a children's book!


 * - A self-published website that has no editorial oversite.


 * - This is a tourist agency and travel guide. It is not a reliable source on Chinese history.


 * - This doesn't actually back up the claims made in this article.


 * - A single page on a provincial government website. Chinese provincial government websites are no reliable history sources. They do not have the professionalism of Chinese national government websites and are prone to exaggeration. If the statement is true then there must be published scientific papers in a reputable journal that back up the claims.

This section of the article needs to be rewritten using good quality references. Rincewind42 (talk) 15:51, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

World's oldest valid coins
At the top of the article is a picture of an 1879 Swiss ten-cent coin with the unsourced caption "They are among the world's oldest coins that are still valid today." But what does that even mean? Ten-cent pieces, dollar pieces, quarter-dollar pieces, etc. have been coined for hundreds of years. If the face value of a 200 year-old coin is still in existence in modern coinage, then I would assume it'd still be usable coinage at that price. It's just that nobody uses them that way because they're more valuable as collector's items. The only exception I can think of would be if a country has passed legislation that outlawed certain issues of currency; but what evidence is there that this has been done so thoroughly in the world that the 1879 Swiss 10-cent piece is now unusually old for legal tender? 108.249.92.198 (talk) 19:38, 25 December 2013 (UTC)

The expression "they are among" could be true, simply because it is so vague, though it does sound like an exaggeration, the only coin issued by the U.S. government that is not still legal tender is the trade silver dollar, and their collector value far exceeds a dollar anyway. A number of U.S. coins that are still legal tender are over 200 years old, some going back to the 18th century. John Alan Elson ★  WF6I A.P.O.I. 15:34, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

the public making new coins?
Circulating coins commonly suffered from "shaving" or "clipping": the public would cut off small amounts of precious metal from their edges to form new coins That statement seems rather absurd. The general public would often clip or shave coins made out of precious metals (especially gold and silver) in order to sell that metal and then pass the coin on at its full value, thus committing a type of fraud. But "the public" forming new coins? I think this needs to be reworded! John Alan Elson ★  WF6I A.P.O.I. 15:45, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

Why is the Year on a coin
Why is the year of minting put on a coin? bank notes dont have the year of printing on them, as far as i am aware.

what is the history behind this practice.

Dave. 193.133.92.229 (talk) 13:34, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Most U.S. bank notes due have a date on them, "series 2008", for example. This may indicate the last time something was changed, rather than when they were printed, however. It is true, though, that the year on U.S. paper currency isn't as prominent as the year on coins.

The dates on coins don't necessarily indicate when they were made either. In 1965 the U.S. mint adopted a policy that all coins from then on would have a date of 1965, but that policy was abandoned in time for 1966 coins to be produced. The dual dated (1776-1976) bicentennial coins, most notably the quarter, replaced both the 1975 and 1976 regular issues so there was no 1975 U.S. quarter minted for general circulation.

It is also not unusual for coins meant for the next year to be produced in the last quarter of the year before, and sometimes, either deliberately or by accident, these are released early. In at least one case this lead to a video on youtube dated Dec 22, 2010, showing a 2011 coin being cited as evidence of time travel! The fact that both comments and ratings were disabled for this video is good evidence that it was a deliberate hoax, not innocent ignorance on the part of the uploader. John Alan Elson ★  WF6I A.P.O.I. 19:43, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

Middleham Hoard
Hi all, PatHadley (talk) here. I'm the Wikipedian-in-Residence at York Museums Trust (Project pages). I've been working with the numismatics curator uploading images of coins from the Middleham Hoard. The whole set can be found here: Category:Coins from the Middleham Hoard (110 images!), I hope that they're useful! Unfortunately the hoard itself is lacking an article. I've started the bones here: Articles for creation/Middleham Hoard (with the relevant online sources tagged. It would be great if people could help the curators (a new editor - YMT Coins) and myself get the article ready for submission. Also, if there are any ways in which we could help you achieve your goals for the coverage of coins on Wikipedia that would be great. You can find out a little about the collection on the blog and contact me with any queries. Look forward to working with you! PatHadley (talk) 13:54, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

2D vs 3D
Does anyone here disagree with the fact that a coin is a 3D object (with 2 sides, an edge and a specific thickness)? I'm getting a bit annoyed by the anonymous user 66.27.143.127 asserting that a coin is actually 2D and him reverting all edits that delete this assertion from the article.

Baszoetekouw (talk) 12:42, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Obviously 3D and to many collectors the edge variety matters much... JoshXF (talk) 09:41, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

There's a danger in over-defining these things. Chinese coins with square holes punched through the middle arguably have two (or five!) edges. There's no particular reason why a coin has to have a specific thickness, the edge often has a raised rim that's thicker than the rest of the coin.

A coin with a given denomination also doesn't have to come in a single size and weight. The UK has recently been through a number of coinage transitions where the sizes and weights changed,leading to multiple sizes and weights in circulation at the same time.

A coin also isn't defined by having a single simple perimeter edge. Coins with tapers or sharp corners are possible, we just don't tend to make them because they'd be tough on the pockets. ErkDemon (talk) 13:22, 22 January 2010 (UTC)(they'd also get caught in vending machines!) John Alan Elson ★  WF6I A.P.O.I. 18:57, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

Artistically, coins are classified are "bar relief" sculpture, meaning that they have only slight depth, at least in most cases. With U.S. coins, and this is true of many other countries as well, one design requirement is that no feature can protrude above the raised rim of the coin, so that they can be neatly stacked. I personally have attempted to make stereoscopic images of coins and can attest to the fact that modern U.S. coins do not lend themselves well to such treatment. in attempting to exaggerate the depth to make it more noticeable I wound up making the sides of the coin look like the are about inch long, giving it a shape similar to a salami with both rounded ends cut off. Imagine a penny that is thicker than it is wide.

Of course, there are plenty of examples of examples of ancient coins that had far more relief, and there may be some current examples as well. John Alan Elson ★  WF6I A.P.O.I. 18:57, 19 January 2014 (UTC)
 * It's somewhat common for coins to have words along the edge of a coin, so ignoring the depth on those wouldn't make any sense. They're pretty clearly 3D objects to me. Chuy1530 (talk) 22:24, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

Article incomplete
This article reveals one of the weaknesses of Wikipedia's systemic bias. While it contains a fair discussion of the history of coins, & their role as currency, it omits several important points. One is the function of coins (up to the 19th century, if not later) as a symbol of the king, prince or republic that issued it: only an independent entity would strike coins. (The kings of the ancient Axum state demonstrated their position amongst the powerful states by issuing their gold coins.) Because coins are symbols of the state that issued them, the designs on a coin provide some insight into the thinking of its rulers, both in the messages they consciously send (for example, Imperial Roman coins are known for their inscriptions, which provided an inexpensive channel for propaganda), & unconscious (e.g. choice of imagery, titles & names used, choice of language, etc.). Purity was often a measure of just how powerful a state was: up to the 12th century, Byzantine gold coins had the highest purity of European coins, & thus influenced the economy of (at least) Western Europe. I came to this article looking for citations to confirm these common beliefs, & not only was I surprised to find them missing, but to find no reference even to the political role of coins. (Nor is there one at Currency, nor at the related "History of" articles.) -- llywrch (talk) 05:56, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

Further -- if I may reply to myself -- there is nothing about the manufacture of coins. This technology has changed & evolved over the centuries, & material on that alone would double or triple the size of this article. And the material would be more relevant than sections on "coin-flipping" or "coin-spinning." -- llywrch (talk) 06:04, 12 April 2014 (UTC)


 * The Roman Currency article has a good amount of detail about the symbolism of the images on their coins, and the Ancient Greek Coinage article touches on it as well. Chuy1530 (talk) 01:56, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

Requirement for a face value
My understanding of what I was recently told (by someone with extensive expertise on the subject) is that the term "coin" is most properly restricted to objects that have a face value that are issued under government authority, and that it could be considered misleading to market a newly minted object as a coin if it does not have those characteristics (particularly including having a face value). Is that the case? Is there any actual legislation about that? —BarrelProof (talk) 02:41, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
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Archived old threads
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Designation of Era: BC vs. BCE
An editor recently changed BC (before Christ) to BCE (before the Common Era) in the article. Whether to use one designation over the other has been debated frequently among Wikipedia editors since at least 2005. A consensus has not been reached. Therefore, it is up to the editors involved with an article to determine which designation to use in that article. If an established article has been using one designation, e.g., BC/AD, versus another, e.g., BCE/CE, then any change should first be discussed on the article's Talk page before making changes to the article.

My personal preference is to keep using BC in this article, but the topic is open to discussion. - Mark D Worthen PsyD  (talk)  18:03, 4 November 2017 (UTC)


 * Note: I left a message for User:Rrobbyy on their Talk page.)

This page needs some serious cleanup
There's some neutrality issues in the section mentioning fiat currency and the section following has some redundant and under-sourced info. There's likely more problems that could stand for a review. 2600:8807:5404:1A00:E988:D5D4:69E5:2543 (talk) 18:01, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

A weird reference [34]
Reference [34] reads "It is unlikely to be spent as it costs 15GBP to buy – article Pyramid coin a nightmare for pockets, article by Gary." Might it be changed?--Adûnâi (talk) 04:53, 1 July 2018 (UTC)

Problem in "Features of Modern Coins"
In "Features of Modern Coins" we find this passage:


 * In cases where a correctly oriented coin is flipped about its horizontal axis to show the other side correctly oriented, the coin is said to have coin orientation. In cases where a coin is flipped about its vertical axis to show the other side correctly oriented, it is said to have medallic orientation.

But in the Article "Coin Orientation" we find:


 * Medallic orientation (or medal alignment, or variations of these) derives its name from medals tagged to a uniform. For a medal to display properly, even if it flips over, the reverse needs to be aligned so that the top of the reverse shares the same position as the top of the obverse. In other words, the image on one face of the coin is rightside-up relative to the other.

and


 * The opposite situation is seen in some coins.... In this case, the coin must be flipped about its horizontal axis in order to see the other side the correct way up. In other words, the image on one face of the coin is upside-down relative to the other. For this reason, 'coin orientation' is used in the United States to express the opposite of 'medal orientation'.

The two articles contradict one another, and a non sequitur muddies "Coin Orientation" because the term "flip over," in context, means "turn along the horizontal axis," but in the next paragraph the statement "the coin must be flipped about its horizontal axis in order to see the other side the correct way up" implies that one must turn a coin on its vertical axis to see the reverse correctly in medallic orientation.

In a search of Google Books I found no general book on coins with a preview showing a page on which coin orientation was defined, but in The Coins of Modern Greece, 1828-1831 we find:


 * To determine the die orientation, hold a coin with the obverse upright with your thumb and forefinger at 12 o'clock and 6 o'clock. Turn it to the right or left.  If the reverse is upright then the dies are in the medal orientation.  That is, the top of the design of the obverse and reverse dies is in the same orientation....  If you turned the coin right or left and the reverse design is upside down, the coin is struck with the dies in coin orientation.

It seems, then, that the account in "Coin Orientation" is the proper one. I will edit both articles accordingly.Wordwright (talk) 15:50, 21 July 2018 (UTC)