What's the earliest DATED coin by the Roman Calender?

JohnZ

Serious question.

Don't say "200 B.C."

What I mean is, when do dates start appearing on coins?

lordmarcovan

I read somewhere that there was a European coin (Bohemian?) dated in the late 1300's. Usually you don't start seeing dated coins until the later 1400's, and those are hard to come by. By the mid-1500's, the practice was beginning to catch on. As one particular example, England's earliest dated coins are from the 1550's, in the reign of Edward VI. The Swiss started much earlier than that.

The oldest dated coin I've personally owned was a Hungarian silver denar from 1528.

Of course, there are much older coins that can be dated to a specific year- there a number of Roman examples, though I cannot name them specifically, and they would not have carried a date in numerals according to the Julian or Gregorian calendars used by the Western world.

Philip

From what I've read it's a Roskilde (Denmark) coin from 1234 AD.

The piece is extremely rare.

Edited to add: one of the earliest dated coins that are obtainable come from Aachen.

1jester

Philip's right, as usual.

The oldest dated coin I have is a Polish half grosz from 1509.

lordmarcovan

Denmark, 1634. I guess that's the one I was thinkin' of. Dunno why Bohemia was stickin' out in my head.

sumnom

Why did it take so long for coins to be dated? In fact, why date coins at all?

lordmarcovan

<< <i>In fact, why date coins at all? >>



That probably sums up the whole reason why it took so long!

That, and the fact that it takes work to alter the dies each year, not to mention the crude and rather primitive state of coinage before the 16th century. It was enough to have the king's portrait on there. Most people who weren't clerics couldn't read, anyway.

BigAlan

Why did it take so long for coins to be dated? In fact, why date coins at all?

Probably helped keep track of who was in charge when debased coinage was discovered, something like mintmaster marks.

a2labmom

good question and very interesting replies. Thank you all.

MadMuffin

The Danish coin is dated with Roman numerals: MCCXXXIIII. It is called the "Anno Domini"-coin but so far it has not been explained why it was made. There are some rather complicated suggestions, but the fact remains that nothing really happed in Denmark in the year 1234

I believe that Poland has some early coins dated with arabic numerals - some time early in the 1500's. Denmark has some dated coins from the late 1500's as well, but they only have the last part of the year, for instance "65". This was done because at that time people found it rather foolish to use the space to write the "15" as well because everyone knew what century it was anyway!

Marcel

Philip

<< <i>Philip's right, as usual.

>>



Thank you