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The first coin - addenda



 
 
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  #1  
Old July 14th 03, 11:09 PM
Reid Goldsborough
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Default The first coin - addenda

I've been reading through more of the articles I'd gathered but hadn't
yet gotten around to reading about the world's first coins and
tweaking my page about what I consider to be the very first, adding
lots of additional stuff:

http://rg.ancients.info/lion/

This is all written in stone -- it's part of the Ten Commandments,
actually -- so flames, shouts, sarcasm, name calling, curses, and so
on are all appropriate responses, though as usual I won't be seeing
any from the Usual Suspects, and if any leave message using
sockpuppets, I'll ignore.

I find all this interesting as much because of what isn't conclusively
known as what is. The mystery...

--

Coin Collecting: Consumer Guide: http://rg.ancients.info/guide
Glomming: Coin Connoisseurship: http://rg.ancients.info/glom
Bogos: Counterfeit Coins: http://rg.ancients.info/bogos
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  #2  
Old July 15th 03, 12:51 AM
Ankaaz
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Reid wrote:

"This is all written in stone -- it's part of the Ten Commandments, actually --
so flames, shouts, sarcasm, name calling, curses...."


Hah. Nothing is written in stone, Reid, or haven't you figured that out yet?
It's just like you to take the easy way out and rely on "experts" like
Carradice and Price.

Repeat after me...

I will think out of the box... I will think out of the box... I will think
out of the box...



Anka Z
Co-president of the once thriving, but now defunct, Tommy John Fan Club.
Go, Lake County Captains!

  #3  
Old July 15th 03, 01:10 AM
mark
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From: Reid Goldsborough

http://rg.ancients.info/lion/

This is all written in stone -- it's part of the Ten Commandments,
actually


Naturally. And as per your usual, it is full of errors and misconceptions.

For those who care, in his typical penchant for exageration, Reid has
incorrectly implied that the Lydian stater with the Lion
was the world's first coin. He also incorrectly attributes the date of origin
of the electrum coinage to be 600 BC;
this is about 50-60 years too late, as pure gold and silver coinage was in use
by 610 BC, if not earlier. He also gets
the dates of reign of the Lydian kings incorrect.

Date of lion stater given as 650 BC:
http://www.usask.ca/antiquities/coins/asia_minor.html

date of Lydian coinage given as 610 BC, Lion Stater as 650 BC:
http://worldcoincatalog.com/Contents.../invention.htm

Date of the first Lydian mint given as 610 at Sardis, producing electurm lumps,
blank except for a punch mark.
Note also the correct chronology of Kings and dates of reign:
http://www.coin-gallery.com/cgearlycoins.htm

one of the more thorough on the subject.
Note that the type "Lion’s head r., with globule, radiate, on forehead" is
listed second.
Hence, not only is the lion stater not the first coin, the type that Reid would
'personally call "The Coin."' isn't even considered the inital type of the
series:
http://www.snible.org/coins/hn/lydia.html


Another rather exhuastive and scholarly source which also dating the staters
from 650.
It includes a concise, yet detailed explanation of the evolution of Lydian
coinage from plain lump of electrum to the
"coin" with the lion obverse and double-punch reverse. The article is also
balanced, in that it allows that the Ionain staters
of various typs may have been minted as early as 650 BC:
http://ancient-coin-forum.com/ancien..._origin_of_coi
ns_to_croesus.htm

This is an interesting excerpt from a book published in 2000, which puts forth
the idea that electrum coins prior to 648 BC
were melted by Croesus and refined into pure gold and silver. They use a date
of 626 - 648 for the electrum coins:
http://www.icu-cdnx.com/name_logo.htm

Of course, no explanation of ancient coinage would be complete without comment
from
Mr Harlan J Berk. Berk states that the lion staters were minted from about 650
BC, and
that the electrum issued prior are what he considers the world's first coins:
http://www.harlanjberk.com/departmen.../GreekGold.htm

There's a lot more on the subject. Google is your friend, although apparently
not Mr Goldsborough's.
--
mark
  #5  
Old July 18th 03, 01:19 PM
South of Provemont
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Subject: The first coin - addenda
From: Reid Goldsborough
Date: 7/14/2003 6:09 PM Eastern
http://rg.ancients.info/lion/


Allow me to weigh in and enter the ring.

(0) It is one heck of a nice coin.

(1) As Mark Programmer pointed out, this coin a later type and not the earliest
Lydian coin. So, the title "Earliest Coin" does not apply.

(3) Our cultural context prejudices us against recognizing the incuse punches
as "devices" but indeed they are. They had some purpose, albeit not clear to us
now, perhaps.

(4) The oldest known coins come from a set of separate find sites collectively
called The Artemesian Hoard from Ephesus. Some of these are mere "dumps" nugget
shaped proto-coins. Others have punch marks and so are true coins.

(5) The dating of that hoard has been the subject of much debate. See for
instance,
http://ancient-coin-forum.com/ancien..._origin_of_coi
ns_to_croesus.htm

(6) Googling around the web is perhaps less desirable than getting lost in the
library stacks, so knowing your sources and evaluating them is important.

(7) We have a cultural prejudice that gives us a spectrum of development from
coins to banknotes to credit cards, and that is the reason that stepping back
for perspective allows the student of history to understand that perhaps as
early as 4000 BC merchants created promisary notes on clay.

(7a) The origin of metallic money (weighed and hallmarked and traded for other
goods) might begin with bronze "cow hides" known from Mycenaean finds.

(8) http://rg.ancients.info/lion/ is an interesting presentation that oversells
its case and so fails to make it. Many sources are cited at the top, but the
body lacks footnotes attributing specific statements to reliable authorities.
It is very readable, but the content is ultimately questionable.

(9) It is still one heck of a nice coin. It deserves a good presentation
appropriate to its time and place.




----------------
Michael E. Marotta
ANA R-162953

  #6  
Old July 18th 03, 06:18 PM
Reid Goldsborough
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On 18 Jul 2003 12:19:09 GMT, assed (South of
Provemont) wrote:

(0) It is one heck of a nice coin.


Thanks.

(1) As Mark Programmer pointed out, this coin a later type and not the earliest
Lydian coin. So, the title "Earliest Coin" does not apply.


"Mark Programmer" pronounced definitively what's correct and what's
correct by Googling around to Web sites, one of a 100-year-old book
with information long outdated, one of a museum in Canada that
mislabeled the very coin in question as a stater instead of a third
stater, some of dealers who are just aping old information. He pointed
to nobody who has actually done research about this area, only to one
page with any in-depth, scholarly information, a good page actually.
It's a page that you also pointed to and that I had seen when I first
started researching these coins, but it's a page that doesn't support
at all Mark's position that I'm wrong about the dating or anything
else about Lydian Lions or this particular Lydian trite:

http://ancient-coin-forum.com/ancien...to_croesus.htm

You also are saying definitively, and without validity, that Lydian
Lions are not the oldest coin. In saying this, you also show that you
didn't read, or didn't understand, what I wrote on my page. Much of my
contention that the Lydian Lion is the first coin, again, depends on
how you define "coin." Below, as I'll show, you're defining it
differently from me, and others, though not everybody. And I'm not
saying *anything* definitive about these coins myself, since as I said
the hoard and die-study knowledge about them is so sparse and
inconclusive. What I am doing is proposing that the Lydian Lion is the
first "true" coin and making a case for this position based on what we
do know and what can be logically presumed.

(3) Our cultural context prejudices us against recognizing the incuse punches
as "devices" but indeed they are. They had some purpose, albeit not clear to us
now, perhaps.


A very small minority of incuse punches had designs embedded within
them. Most were just random impressions made during the minting
process. But if you want to see designs in them, in the same way that
someone sees designs in clouds when gazing at the sky, go for it. One
numismatic writer actually wrote a humorous piece about just this
subject, trying to make out designs in the random markings of incuse
punches.

(4) The oldest known coins come from a set of separate find sites collectively
called The Artemesian Hoard from Ephesus. Some of these are mere "dumps" nugget
shaped proto-coins. Others have punch marks and so are true coins.


This is where the definition of "coin" comes in. A lump of metal with
an incuse punch is not a "coin," according to E.S.G. Robinson, Colin
Kraay, and a number of others who have studied these and other early
coins, as I pointed out on this page. Their reasoning makes sense, and
I agree with it. A "coin," according to them (and according to
Webster, Second Edition, and other dictionaries today), must have a
type (design) that clearly links it to a recognized ruling authority.
These typeless pieces do not -- the lumps, the lumps with incuse
punches, the lumps with incuse punches and striations across their
obverse. These were pre-coins. It was only when the lion was
introduced as a mark, a design, that the piece could be linked to an
issuing authority (the Lydian royal house), that it became a "coin,"
according to this definition of what a coin is.

(5) The dating of that hoard has been the subject of much debate. See for
instance,
http://ancient-coin-forum.com/ancien..._origin_of_coi
ns_to_croesus.htm


No kidding. I clearly mentioned this, emphasizing it, on my page. As
said, "what we don't know about this coin and other very early coins
is at least as great as what we do know, and with what we do know,
there's much disagreement and controversy."

(6) Googling around the web is perhaps less desirable than getting lost in the
library stacks, so knowing your sources and evaluating them is important.


Google, and the Web in general, can be a useful source of information.
But people like Mark and others before him here go way wrong when they
assume it's the final word and when they fail to evaluate the
information they find there for accuracy and relevancy.

There's a great deal of misinformation on the Web, more so in general
than in print because you don't have the same safeguards against it.
And there's a great deal of information that isn't on the Web -- most
articles and books, as just one tiny little example.

The word "composter " is a good one to describe people who take Web
information and post it on Usenet as definitive information, making
out as if they're experts.

(7) We have a cultural prejudice that gives us a spectrum of development from
coins to banknotes to credit cards, and that is the reason that stepping back
for perspective allows the student of history to understand that perhaps as
early as 4000 BC merchants created promisary notes on clay.


Agreed. But I was talking about coins.

(7a) The origin of metallic money (weighed and hallmarked and traded for other
goods) might begin with bronze "cow hides" known from Mycenaean finds.


Also, not a coin. Again, depending on how you define "coin." We're
talking coins here, not money. All kinds of objects have been used as
money, as you know.

(8) http://rg.ancients.info/lion/ is an interesting presentation that oversells
its case and so fails to make it. Many sources are cited at the top, but the
body lacks footnotes attributing specific statements to reliable authorities.
It is very readable, but the content is ultimately questionable.


The footnotes will appear in the published article, which will be an
expanded version of this page.

(9) It is still one heck of a nice coin. It deserves a good presentation
appropriate to its time and place.


Thanks again.

--

Coin Collecting: Consumer Guide: http://rg.ancients.info/guide
Glomming: Coin Connoisseurship: http://rg.ancients.info/glom
Bogos: Counterfeit Coins: http://rg.ancients.info/bogos
  #7  
Old July 18th 03, 09:11 PM
Phil DeMayo
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Reid Goldsborough wrote:

This is where the definition of "coin" comes in. A lump of metal
with an incuse punch is not a "coin".....


Then why did you use the phrase "minting process" when discussing them a few
paragraphs up?


++++++++++
Phil DeMayo - always here for my fellow Stooge
When bidding online always sit on your helmet
Just say NO to counterfeits
  #10  
Old July 21st 03, 03:22 AM
mark
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From: Reid Goldsborough

"Mark Programmer" pronounced definitively what's correct and what's
correct by Googling around to Web sites,


The google thing is quick, obviously not the last word. What I posted did have
the virtue of all being in agreement with each other. There were ZERO web
sites that agreed with any of your claims that the version of the lion you
posted was the first coin, the date of mintage being 600 BC, or the chronology
of Lydian kings that you presented. None of which you've corrected or shown to
be correct by virtue of any other references.

one of a 100-year-old book
with information long outdated,


Says who?

one of a museum in Canada that
mislabeled the very coin in question as a stater instead of a third
stater


Read it again. The denominations are based on weight, not design style.

Some of dealers who are just aping old information.


So Harlan Berk just apes old information? I'm sure he'd be delighted to hear
your opinion.


He pointed
to nobody who has actually done research about this area, only to one
page with any in-depth, scholarly information, a good page actually.


I am still amazed that you can contridict yourself in a single sentence.

t's a page that you also pointed to and that I had seen when I first
started researching these coins, but it's a page that doesn't support
at all Mark's position that I'm wrong about the dating or anything
else about Lydian Lions


Yes, it does. Read it again. Pay attention to the order of kings and what was
made by whom.


And I'm not
saying *anything* definitive about these coins myself,


OK Mr Professional Journalist, how does this not constitute a declairitve
statement?

The Lydian Lion is the one coin I'd personally call "The Coin."

Sounds very much like you are making a definitive statement there.

--
mark
 




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