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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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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! |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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Subject: The first coin - addenda
From: Alan & Erin Williams Date: 7/18/2003 8:32 AM Eastern bronze "cow hides" known from Mycenaean finds. Any particular argument for not considering these as coins? The bronze cow hides weighing one talent and presumably worth one car are indeed coins to me. Consider the early Chinese knife money. They are mostly shaped like knives, but are not really knives and were traded like coins and their handles led directly to the Chinese cash. So, they are coins, also. We have been around on this and there is no single good definition of "coin." I offered one that was pretty broad. Most so-called "authorities" (common dictionaries, numismatic dictionaries) stipulate that a "coin" must be issued by a government. What about the coins of Marcus Porcius Cato, the Younger? He had no such authority, being in revolt -- and much of Roman history was like that with leaders in the field issuing coins. Most so-called authorities say that a coin must have a statement of value. The British Sovereign fails that test. It goes on and on. Also -- a new point -- the word COIN refers to the "wedge" that struck the metal. So, are CAST coins not coins? ---------------- Michael E. Marotta ANA R-162953 |
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