Great Hobby: Collecting Ancient Coins

Ancient coin collecting has the potential to be a profoundly fascinating hobby for those who are interested in coins or interested in history. The hobby can be about as expensive and one chooses. The first ancient coin purchase I made cost me $2.50 cents for a Constantius back in the seventies. I have paid as little as $1.00 each for uncleaned ancient coins. I have borrowed a part of the following article from the US Mint. There was no author’s name so I will give credit to the US taxpayers.

“There are many excellent reasons why you might want to collect coins. For starters, they tell unique stories. A coin's design, mintmark, condition and composition can offer a glimpse into history and a better understanding of the past.
Some people collect coins in the hope that they will appreciate in value. Some coins have intrinsic bullion value (such as silver, gold and platinum coins). Others become valuable because they are rare.
Coin collecting, one of the oldest hobbies, was once practiced only by kings and the wealthy. That's why coin collecting often is called the "king of hobbies" and the "hobby of kings."
Coin collecting became increasingly popular in America during the 1930s when United States commemorative coins became widely available. Today, there are millions of coin collectors in the United States alone. The thriving coin-collecting community, which includes clubs throughout the United States, provides numerous opportunities for collectors to meet and trade.
A Brief History of Coins
From ancient Egyptian coins to today's circulating cents, coins have a rich and fascinating history. The first coins date back to 650 B.C. - more than 2,600 years ago - in Lydia, an area that today is part of Turkey.”

Enough from the US Mint. With great bias, I will share the very best source for learning about ancient coins. I have an Ancient Coin Yahoo group, Ancient Peddler, where we have some of the finest ancient coin scholars on the web. I encourage you and your friends to join our group and I encourage you to ask all the questions you care to ask about ancient coins. I will also state that we have been know to drift off topic from time to time since we are a very friendly and caring group. Our Ancient Peddler URL is as follows: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ancientpeddler
We have other ancient coins groups but I will share that information at some future time. Thank you for reading and I hope your interest in ancient coin collecting had been stimulated to some degree.. God Bless.. Jerry..

Getting To Know Our Ancient Coin Metals

One of our Ancient Peddler members asked a question about bronze and after doing a bit of research I realized how little many of us know about coin metals. I will share some things I discovered about bronze. If you can add to my list, please do and please let us know what you have learned.

Bronze is an alloy of copper and tin.

Bronze was developed as an alloy thousands of years ago.

Obviously, the Bronze Age was called that because of development of bronze.

Historians believe bronze was “created” as early as 3000 BC.

Bronze is tougher that its parent metal copper.

Bronze is very resistant to corrosion.

Bronze has a relatively low melting point.

Bronze used to manufacture bells is called “Bell Metal” and is created by adding tin.

Statuary bronze will have as little as 10% tin.

Zinc is added to bronze alloy to add strength for the manufacture of bearings and weapons.

Phosphor is often added to bronze to add more strength.

Manganese is often added to bronze to increase strength and machinability.

I hope you find these facts about bronze interesting and I am wondering if the ancients knew some of these things such as adding zinc. I have always been interested in metals and wood and I hope I have not bored you with my personal interest in bronze.. God Bless.. Jerry..

Extra Zapping Reveals This Beauty

The coin you see to the right was very resistant to cleaning so I placed her in my Super Zapper and gave her an extra kick and the crust eventually fell away. It is difficult to find coins of this quality unless one finds the coin under crust. I still have a bit of touching up to do and will most likely use my graphite pencil scrub to eliminate the darkness around the legend.

After I finish cleaning the coin I plan to allow the coin to patinate naturally with just a little help. I find great joy in extricating these coins from the encrustation. I am the first to see this coin in this condition in about 1700 years. I am sure if it was not for Zapping, I would have little interest in ancient coins. As a retired teacher I would be unable to afford the coins I like. Many of the members of CoinZappers feel the same as I do about Zapping. I must warn you, it is addictive! Thank you for looking and God bless.. Jerry..

Lighting: This Is What I Have Been Looking For

I have been working with my coin photo lighting for months and I am finally satisfied with recent results. Please take a look at the Antonius Pius attached left and see if you agree. If you like what you see, then go back through my blog posts and see if there is a light tent you like.

I have reported more than once that I believe good coin photography is about 98% lighting and the remaining 2% accounts for other factors. I really hope that something I have shared will help you move ahead more rapidly that I have. I built another light tent a few days ago that I like a lot. Perhaps I will share the unit soon.

Let me know what you think of the photo. Perhaps I am being too subjective and perhaps you can share something that will make me a better coin photographer. Thank you for reading and God Bless.. Jerry..

What Is The Oldest Metal Coin

I must give credit for the following article to “Cais Archaeological & Cultural News”.. In the process of reading about ancient metal money I encountered the following article and I believe it is of interest to many of our members. The article did not provide an author’s name so I am presenting the article as I found it.

It is widely believed that Lydians were the first nation to ever mint a coin for financial transactions; however, an Iranian scholar has just refuted the theory.

According to existent documents, it is impossible to confirm if Lydians minted coins for the very first time, and we just can say first coins were produced in a land stretched from ancient Persia to Greece, contended Dr. Naser Chegini, head of the history department at the archaeological research center of Iranian Cultural Heritage and Tourism Organization (CHTO).

He believes human beings initially used leaves, stone insignias and shells to conduct their transactions. “But they were not viable and soon people decided to make coins. I reckon it happened during the 6th and 7th centuries BC, but there is no verifiable proof that Lydians invented coins.”

‘The Lydians,’ says Herodotus (i. 94), ‘were the first people we know of to strike coins of gold and of silver’, and Xenophanes of Colophon bears witness to the same tradition. Passing from these statements of ancient writers to an examination of the earliest Asiatic essays in the craft of coining, we are led to ascribe to the seventh century B.C., and probably to the reign of Gyges (B.C. 687- 652), the founder of the dynasty of the Mermnadae and of the new Lydian empire, as distinguished from the Lydia of more remote antiquity, the first issues of the Lydian mint.

These are bean-shaped ingots of the metal called by the Greeks ‘electrum’ or ‘white gold’, a natural compound of gold and silver, collected at Sardes from the washings of the little mountain torrent Pactolus, and perhaps from diggings on the slopes of Tmolus and Sipylus. Ingots and rings, &c., of the precious metals adjusted to fixed weights had been used for purposes of exchange for ages before the Lydians first invented the convenient process of stamping them with marks as guarantees of value. Ingots thus stamped henceforth passed freely as current coin, and, so long as they were correct in weight, the exact amount of pure gold in each lump of metal does not appear to have been taken into consideration.

The generally accepted rate of exchange between pure gold and silver stood in these times as 13.3 to 1, and the mixed metal, ‘electrum,’ of very variable quality, was roughly estimated at the rate of about 10 to 1, a convenient proportion which enabled bankers and money-changers to make use of a single set of weights for electrum and silver, and which accounts for the fact that the weights of the electrum staters correspond with those of the later silver staters, and depend upon the standard which happened to be in use for weighing silver in bullion and afterwards in coin in various districts. These standards were, in Lydia, the so-called Babylonic (stater 168 grs.) and the so-called Phoenician (stater 220 grs.).

One of the most fascinating coins of all time, a coin that has more reason than any other to be called the first true coin, is the Lydian third stater, or trite, pictured above. This coin was minted around 600 B.C. in Lydia, Asia Minor (current-day Turkey), a country in close proximity to both the Greek colonies in Asia Minor, through which ideas about coinage and much else spread, and the civilizations of Mesopotamia, from which ideas about money and much else originated.

Thank you for reading and I would love to have you share your opinions about the article.. God Bless.. Jerry..

Using TinyURL Effectively: Tutorial

Many times we encounter URL’s that are so long they are hard to copy and paste without “breaking” the string. Consequently the URL ‘s are ineffective as we attempt to share with others. There is a wonderful solution and the solution is what is known as a TinyURL.

I continue to discover there are many members who do not know how to use the Tiny or either they are unaware of the program. I hope to resolve this issue in my article. First of all go to http://www.tinyurl.com and take a look at what we have. I will attempt to walk you through the process of creating a TinyURL. Now choose a site and copy the URL and change to a Tiny using the following instructions.

Use your regular browser to locate the desired site.
Look at the top of the displayed site and you will see the URL in the address window.
Highlight the URL by left clicking on the string with your mouse. Make sure the entire string is highlighted.
Next, using your mouse, right click on the URL and click on the “Copy” option.
You will now need to go to http://www.tinyurl.com/ I keep the Tiny saved to “Favorites” so I can simply drop down and it is instantly ready to use.
In the center of the TinyURL page you will see a box that states ”Enter a long URL to make tiny” Place your mouse cursor in the box, right click and click the “Paste” option. Your long URL will be pasted in the box.
Next, click the button to the right that states “Make a TinyURL”
Instantly you will see a much-shortened version of the once long URL. What was once a URL of 40 characters has been reduced to 10 or so characters.
You will now need to copy and paste the TinyURL anywhere you would normally have copied and pasted the long and cumbersome URL. Please practice until you have learned the program and practice copying and pasting until you feel comfortable with TinyURL.

I hope I have explained the Tiny well enough to enable you to use the program effectively. I will be happy to answer any questions. I love this little program and I hope you get as much use from it as I do.. God Bless.. Jerry..

When Is A Coin No Longer A Coin?

Is the coin I have attached to this article still a coin in spite of its deterioration? If so, at what point in the process of deterioration does the object cease to be a coin? If the coin remains for years in the same place until we have only a small pile of sediment, would we say we still have a coin or at this point would we say we have the remains of a coin?

Allow me this premise. What if I am left with a pile of sediment but knew the coin in its better days, visually.. Would the coin be real? Would it not be real in my memory? If you sell your car is the car still real? Yes. It simply is no longer in your visual realm. Or is it? As you image the car in your mind is that not your reality of the car?

Let’s try this. What if I select a perfectly good bronze Roman coin and melt it with a torch.. Is the coin still a coin as we observe the molten lump of bronze? We have changed the entire appearance of the coin but is the image within our mind our reality? What if I shift my presentation and tell you I found the attached image amongst a group of rusted nuts, bolts and washers? I think your opinion will suddenly change.

So is it true that perception is reality or is it true that your perception is your reality? Thank you for reading and feedback is invited. Please bookmark.. God bless.. Jerry..