Oldest coins with a legible date?

stevepk · July 27, 2015 2:57AM

What are the oldest world coins with a legible, four-digit date?

brg5658 · July 27, 2015 3:38AM

You will likely find this thread to be interesting.

I will refrain from reposting all of the information here.

NiceCurrency · July 27, 2015 6:42AM

there are plenty of ancient coins with dates, there is entire book dedicated to the subject calld "Dated Coins of Antiquity"

now mind you they are dating from founding of empires, cities and reigns of other notables and not "year of our lord" so it's not quite what you're after, but interesting food for thoughr

sumnom · July 27, 2015 7:06AM

Why only four-digit dates?

sumnom · July 27, 2015 7:28AM

Here is an old thread on this topic: linky-doodle

Tibor · July 27, 2015 9:04AM

I believe this might help, corrections and/or clarifications are welcome.

First coin: Obv. ERA MCIIII
Rev. TOLETVM

Year 1204 in the es-Safar calendar (1166 AD) which at the
was 38 years ahead of the ANNO DOMINI calendar.
Issued by Alfonso VIII

Second coin: Obv. ANNO DOMINI
Rev. MCCXXXIIII

Year 1234 Struck in the town of Roskilde.
Possibly issued by the bishop of Roskilde.

Third coin: Rev.: AN DNI MCCCLXXII

Year 1372, coin issued in the German city of Aachen,

Fourth coin: Rev. ANNO DOMINI MCCCLXXII

Year 1372, coin issued by the Lordship of the city
Schoonvorst-Sichem, Southern Netherlands

Fifth coin: Rev. SANTIUS GALLUS 1424

The 4's in the date are of medieval style, they look like
bow ties. This the first coin with modern Arabic-numeric
date.

Much of this info is in Robert Levinson's book: The Early Dated Coins of Europe 1234-1500.

As before, I hope this helps. I will be glad to answer any questions.

lordmarcovan · July 27, 2015 4:01PM

As mentioned, the extremely rare 1234 AD Roskilde denier from Denmark is usually mentioned as "the" earliest dated coin, at least with an Anno Domini date.

As the auction listing indicates, seven pieces are known, but of those, only that particular one is in private hands. Presumably the rest are museum pieces.

(Sure makes me wish I could do some metal detecting around Roskilde!)

Tibor · July 27, 2015 5:05PM

On pg. 94 of Albert R. Frey's book "The Dated European Coinage Prior To 1501" tells
of an extensive effort to locate some of the Roskilde deniers. This took place during
the mid to late 1940's. I have the Spanish coin (ERA 1204). A picture of the coin can
be seen at "www.coinarchives.com" in the World Coin section, type in the name
Alfonso VIII. About 3/4 down the page.

Sapyx · July 27, 2015 9:02PM

As others above have implied, we'll need more precise terminology from the OP in order to answer the question... assuming the answer hasn;t been given already.

What eactly do you mean by "legible"? And what do you mean by "4-digit date"?

I'm assuming you mean "an AD calendar date, not written using a secret symbol-code or Roman numerals but written using modern Western Arabic numerals (eg. 1, 2, 3 etc)". In which case, the answer is the St Gallen (Swiss cantonal) coin dated 1424, mentioned by Tibor. The shape of the "4" isn't quite the same as a modern "4" (it looks more like a memorial ribbon), but it is the date, it is legible and it has 4 digits.

DennisH · July 28, 2015 10:15AM

The first dated (using numbers the way we do today) crown-size coin was the 1486 guldiner of archduke Sigismund of Tyrol (Austria).

Oldest coins with a legible date?

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