Is there any evidence civilizations collected coins centuries ago?
braddick
Posts: 25,000 ✭✭✭✭✭
I wonder if anyone in the Roman Empire collected coins? How about civilizations afterward? What is the earliest known 'evidence' of coin collectors?
peacockcoins
0
Comments
I would say yes. Roman or very early civilizations that had coins definitely hoarded coins. There have been many terra-cotta pots or similar treasure hoards found over the years containing thousands of Roman coins.
Coin "spills" are also found occasionally by metal detectors. I'm not sure if that constitutes as a collection but I think that is evidence people saved coins and valued them.
Suetonius (author of The Twelve Caesars, written about 100 A.D.) uncategorically states that Augustus Caesar gave old coins as gifts to his friends and family.
Sure they did....after all people collected sea shells before metal coins....hmmmm, I think people still collect them too!
bob;)
Wonder if anyone found a GS in the pot of coins
Collectors are not so civilized now.
I attended a lecture at the ANS given by Professor Philip Wagoner a few months ago about Indian coin hoards that have been recovered in the Deccan region of India dating from 1347-1687. I asked Professor Wagoner if some/any of the hoards might have been coin collections and he thought that it was possible.
Some Roman coin hoards that have been found were clearly coin collections as they contained portrait coins of each Emperor or other Roman personality.
Humans are collectors... that is not a new development. I am sure, going back even further, some early humans collected interesting rocks - Well, some people still do...
No doubt some of the elite collected early coins. Cheers, RickO
I have serious doubts that early humans were numismatists. I agree that they hoarded coins, but for many other reasons other than building a collection per se.
Gyges of Lydia established the first Mint about 700 B.C. Gyges issued stamped lumps of "electrum" of uniform size and weight. King Croesus of Lydia issued the first pure gold stamped lumps/coins about 550 B.C. The Greeks picked up on these developments very soon after. It was off to the races after that.
When Suetonius was writing about 100 years after the birth of Christ, he assumed that people collected coins as artifacts to illustrate history. The relevant passage in 'The Lives of the Twelve Caesars' is very clear.
Dang I hate spellcheck.
Traditionally it was one of the royal avocations among the elite. Probably goes back to the beginning of money, as Aristotle discusses. http://chalaux.org/epdduk05.htm
Simply impossible. Honestly, how could ancient people have collected coins? There were no slabs or stickers in those days.
Just think of how ancient collecting would be if there were records of, say, "Caesar's Assessment of Condition"
Keeper of the VAM Catalog • Professional Coin Imaging • Prime Number Set • World Coins in Early America • British Trade Dollars • Variety Attribution