CoinWeek Ancient Coin Series by Mike Markowitz ….. Mona Lisa must have had the highway blues, You can tell by the way she smiled… — Bob Dylan, “Visions of Johanna”, Blonde on Blonde (1966) ANCIENT GREEK COINS struck before 500 BCE are called “archaic” by numismatists. Actually, archaic features continue to appear on coins for […]
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By Michael T. Shutterly for CoinWeek ….. Kroisos, King of Lydia Kroisos, the last king of the Ionian kingdom of Lydia in Asia Minor, launched a revolution in coinage when he minted the world’s first gold coins and first silver coins. With his “kroiseids” he also created the world’s first bi-metallic coinage system. The ancient […]
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By Michael T. Shutterly for CoinWeek ….. The first coins to be struck appeared c. 650 BCE in what is now western Turkey. These coins were little more than blobs of electrum; what made these blobs “coins” rather than “bullion” is that they were cast to fit precisely within a measured system of weights and […]
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By Russell A. Augustin, AU Capital Management, LLC The Colosseo Collection ……… The Beginning of Coinage Shown with expressive and diverse imagery today, ancient coins started from very humble beginnings. The ancient author Herodotus wrote that the Lydians were “the first people we know of to use a gold and silver coinage”. Through hoard evidence […]
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Ancient Gold Coin – Mysia, Cyzicus. Hekte circa 500-450 By Russell A. Augustin – AU Capital Management, LLC …. Cyzicus was one of the great trade cities of the ancient world. It was located on the Sea of Marmara and ruled by the Persian Empire until its capture by Alexander the Great in 334 BCE. […]
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An ancient people’s reliance on the sea is reflected in money Finely engraved images of animals and mythic creatures are commonplace on ancient Greek coins. The spectrum is incredible, ranging from imaginary creatures to the kinds of animals the ancients encountered in everyday life. Among the most frequently shown are aquatic creatures. This is hardly […]
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The business of a sphinx is to be mysterious By Mike Markowitz for CoinWeek …. …somewhere in sands of the desert A shape with lion body and the head of a man A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, Is moving its slow thighs…[1] — W. B. Yeats, “The Second Coming” (1920) IN […]
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Highlights of the upcoming Lanz Auction include an aureus of Magna Urbica with a provenance dating back as far as 1907 and an elaborately worked Bavarian gnadenpfennig By Numismatik Lanz …… Numismatic dealership Numismatik Lanz will auction off 710 lots comprising coins and medals from all over the world in their own premises on 7 […]
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By Russell A. Augustin, AU Capital Management, LLC The Colosseo Collection ……… The Beginning of Coinage Shown with expressive and diverse imagery today, ancient coins started from very humble beginnings. The ancient author Herodotos wrote that “the Lydians were the first people we know of to use a gold and silver coinage”. Through hoard evidence […]
The post Ancient Coins: The Beginning of Coinage appeared first on CoinWeek.
By Russell A. Augustin, AU Capital Management, LLC The Colosseo Collection ……… The Beginning of Coinage Shown with expressive and diverse imagery today, coinage started from very humble beginnings. The ancient author Herodotos wrote that “the Lydians were the first people we know of to use a gold and silver coinage”. Through hoard evidence and […]
The post Ancient Coins: The Beginning of Coinage appeared first on CoinWeek.