Subjective topic - What is the approximate date cut-off for 'Ancient' coins?

STONE

Is the cut-off for 'ancient' coins 1,000+ years ago, 1,500+ years ago? 500 A.D. and earlier? etc., etc.

Do 'ancient' coins correspond to certain civilizations, and thus different time periods in different parts of the world?

I'm just trying to get an idea for how we classify 'ancient' coins.


***My next period of interest is the 'Medieval' period of numismatics - same question - how is this defined?


Thanks in advance

STLNATS

I think that the general opinion is ancient refers to anything before the fall of the Roman empire in the west, AD 476. A "hard" date for Medieval is less clear in my mind, but a popular - and probably reasonable - definition is up to the fall of Constantinople in 1453. The first part of this latter period, up to 1000 or so, is often referred to as the Dark Ages.

1960NYGiants

Ancient Coins


From Wikipedia:

Dark Ages:
Originally the term characterized the bulk of the Middle Ages, or roughly the 6th to 13th centuries, as a period of intellectual darkness between extinguishing the "light of Rome" after the end of Late Antiquity, and the rise of the Italian Renaissance in the 14th century.

Medieval:
In European history, the Middle Ages, or Medieval period, lasted from the 5th to the 15th century. It began with the collapse of the Western Roman Empire and merged into the Renaissance and the Age of Discovery. The Middle Ages is the middle period of the three traditional divisions of Western history: Antiquity, Medieval period, and Modern period. The Medieval period is itself subdivided into the Early, the High, and the Late Middle Ages.

Sapyx

Your definitions or cutoff dates for what you consider "ancient", "mediaeval" or "modern" can vary, depending on your area of collecting and/or your educational background. A typical Western-educated person regards the fall of the Western Roman Empire in AD 476 as the end of the "ancient" world and the beginning of the "mediaeval" world. There are those who disagree, seeing that the Eastern Roman Empire continued perfectly fine for another thousand years after 476, and seek a later date. Coin collectors often select AD 498 as a convenient cutoff date for ancients, since it is that date when Eastern Roman emperor Anastasius I reformed the bronze coinage, introducing what is now regarded as the typical "Byzantine" follis and its fractions. Thus, AD 498 can mark a convenient break between the "Roman" and "Byzantine" series; this is the approach David Sear takes in his Roman and Byzantine coin catalogues.

Of course, for non-Western coinage series, the terminology used in the West is less helpful. Since China did not really have a "dark age", as the West did, dividing Chinese history into ancient, mediaeval and modern makes little sense. Collectors of Chinese coins tend to sort by Dynasty, rather than by Age. Since the Islamic era began in what we regard as the "dark ages", the whole timescale is compressed; "ancient Islamic coins" are typically those made before the First Crusade in 1099. Other coin collectors regard method of manufacture as more important: cast or hand-struck is "ancient", whereas machine-struck is "modern"; for such collectors, coins made even in the 1940s in India or Vietnam can still be considered "ancient".

Personally, I prefer nice round numbers. AD 500 is my ancient-mediaeval cutoff, close enough to AD 498 to make no difference; all of my "Roman" coins go in the Ancients album. The mediaeval-modern cutoff I put at AD 1450 - also close enough to the Fall of Constantinople in 1453 to make no difference; all of my "Byzantine" coins can go in my Mediaeval album.