Going back in time, a coin from every century!

This is my dream project for some years, but I've been putting it off as I thought It would be expensive to put together such a thing. However, ever since I actively started collecting ancients this year, my quest for completing this set got reignited, and here we are!
Most of the coins have specific dates to them, whereas some only have the range of dates, for those coins I've stated the earliest range.

21st century
2009, Royal Australian Mint, Canberra.
Australia-International Polar Year 5 dollars
A silver proof coin with the a hologram inset to depict the Aurora Australis above the map of Antarctica. The most technologically advanced coin in my collection!


20th century
1915, George V Perth Mint Sovereign.
The peak of British Empire.


19th century
1802, Mexico Mint 8 Reales with Oriental chopmarks.
This coin depicts the age of trade between the new world the old world.


18th century
~1750s French India 'Doudou'
Puducherry mint (name in Tamil). A coin featuring a French Fleur-di-lis with a non-European language might be the most iconic coin from the colonial times.


17th century
1638-1662 Mysore Kingdom, ‘Kanthirava Fanam’ featuring the lion-faced Hindu god Narasimha, with the name Kanthirava in Nagari on reverse.


16th century
1511, Halfgroat of Zygmunt I
Lithuania. My oldest Gregorian dated coin!


15th century
1471, Ottoman akce of Constantinople mint, Mehmed II. The guy who brought down the Byzantium!


14th century
1303, Edward I of England.
London mint, an iconic English hammered coin. I find the 'cartoon' like portrait amusing!


13th century
1268–1310, Later Independent Pandyas (you will see them again in this thread ), Maravarman Kulasekara Pandya I.
Standing king on the obverse, and him seated on the reverse with their royal emblem fish, and a scepter to its right.


12th century
1143-1180, Byzantium-Manuel I Komnenos, Aspron trachy. I wanted a coin featuring Christ himself, and also the iconic Byzantium 'cup coin'.

 

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11th century
1014-1044, Chola Empire- Rajendra Chola. 1/8th Kahavanu
A commemorative coin of the subjugation of their neighboring Chera kingdom, and the Pandyas. The Chola's tiger, with the Chera's bow (behind the tiger), and the Pandya's twin fish, all under the same umbrella denotes equal control. The reverse in Nagari says Yudhamalla, one who's strong in wars!


10th century
950-1050, Chalukyas of Gujarat- ‘Gadhiya Paisa’, anonymous ruler. This coin has the degenerative design inspired from the earlier Sassanian coinage of the king's face on the obverse with fire-altar on the reverse.


9th century
841-907, Tang dynasty-Kaiyuan Tongbao; Fu. Anonymous ruler. A Chinese coin made not by striking with the hammer, but through casting in moulds!


8th century
714, Dirham of the Umayyad Caliphate, Waist mint. Probably under the Caliph Al-Walid I ibn Abd al-Malik (or) Sulayman ibn Abd al-Malik. Just under a century after the foundation of Islam!


7th century
600-630, Pallavas of Kanchi, Mahendravarman I-potin coin with Bull and Dharmachakra wheel. Probably the first Indian kingdom to spread Hinduism to South East Asia through trade. By the time of the Cholas, Hinduism was the main religion in SEA, through trade but also by direct conquests!
6th century
527-565, Byzantium- Justinian I, 40 nummi. The Restorer of Rome!
(only my opinion, had he not spent most of the resources on conquering the west for honour, but saved up for the future emperors to defend Egypt, Syria, Judea from the Arabs, the Byzantium could've yielded more power in Europe, and even existed into the modern times!)


5th century
415-455, Gupta Empire, Kumaragupta I, nothing much to say here lol!


4th century
330-333, Roman empire, Constantinus I. VRBS ROMA, Siscia mint- Lupa Capitolina, Romulus and Remus feeding on She-wolf . A Roman icon, that should be in any ancient collection!


3rd century
200-300, Yaudheya republican confederacy, with the Hindu god of war Kartikeya, he's also the Indian representation of Mars, reverse has a goddess with a conch shell. They were eventually subjugated by the Guptas by the 4th century!


2nd century
197, Roman Empire- Caracalla as Caesar, Spei Perpetuae, Laodicea mint. An innocent baby face that would later turn out to be a blood-thirsty monster!

 

1st century
66, Roman Empire- A Fat Nero!
However the Salus on the reverse is munted


52 BC
Celtic tribe of the Senones, potin unit. The tribe which sacked Rome back in 390 BC in the Battle of Allia!


~150 BC
Early Pandyas, with elephant and stylised fish (their royal emblem). There are records from the Greek and Roman sources mentioning the trade with this Indian kingdom!


268 – 232 BC
Mauryan empire, Ashoka. The first major Indian Kingdom to exist.


328-323 BC
Alexander the Great Drachm, life-time issue- Lampsakos mint.


~450 BC
Sicily Second Democracy Onkia, featuring Nymph Aruthesa, and octopus. My first European ancient coin that I got for the KRAKEN!


525 BC - 475 BC
Ionia 1/12th Stater. Tiny, yet elegant!


600 BC
Gandhara Janapada- 1/8th Satamana. While the consensus is that coinage originated from Lydia and Ionia, these underrated punch mark coins were also being used in commerce around the same period. This coin from the modern day Afghanistan is a great way to acquire one of the earliest form of metallic money!

1200-700 BC
Chinese cowrie-shell imitating deer bone money. Whether they were used as a currency or just a clothing decoration is for the debate, however the typical holed Chinese coins have said to be inspired from these holes bones, which were themselves imitated from the cowrie shells used as a form of exchange! furthermore there are gold and bronze 'cowrie shells', cementing the fact that these artifacts may have been indeed used as currency! Also, I'd love to get a carbon dating of this piece!


A rough map of where all these coins came from!

 

I mean it's only dark age for Europe, whereas the middle east was thriving under the Arabs and Persians, and not to mention the booming trade among the south Indian kingdoms, South East Asia, and China!

 

Great set, @JayAg47 !

I would like to build every decade BCE. It would be difficult before 600 BCE. Then, I would go after protomonies...



India Gandahara
AR Bent Bar
early long type
11.3g
650-600 BCE

 

I'd love to get those chunky bent bars one day, but they're all expensive! it's interesting to see the silver weight standard of 11.3 grams to be consistent all the way to India's Independence in 1947 when the silver rupee still weighed around 11.3g, and what's more interesting is that the Australian florins also weigh 11.33g!

 

Fabulous idea and great accomplishment. Congrats !
I guess our own @panzerman would have a few things to show on the subject

Q

 

WOW Fabulous

 

That is awesome Jay! I am going to look over my collection and see how close I am to being able to do that.

One minor correction/addition. Your 9th century coin is indeed a Kai Yuan Tong Bao. However, it is a special type with mint mark on the reverse. These are called Huichang Kai Yuan Tong Bao as they were struck in the Huichang era of Emperor Wu Zong. They were in fact struck 845-846 AD, though they are common enough that there is some thought that they continued to be struck for a bit longer.

I am not 100% sure about your mark. possibly a Yue for Yuezhou.

SC

 

Thanks for the heads up!

 

A great set! I originally set out to build a century set as well but became too enamored with ancients.

 

@JayAg47, this is inspired and really well executed. Really appreciate you sharing with us!

 

Love it, very nice idea. It would be a good set to make a display of I think.

 

I like the idea but question your choice for the 21st century for a non-circulating coin that basically says coinage is dead and all we have left are medallions. I'd rather you picked a UK pound or some Euro type that was spent even if you wanted a perfect proof to represent the type. Otherwise, I'd only suggest you upgrade types to select coin that were major players in the century they represent. That might mean a Trajan or Hadrian for the Caracalla Caesar for example. You do have a nice spread of cultures (not all Roman) to cover the history of world coinage.

 

A general comment, not narrowly coin-related: “Dark Ages” in scholarly circles has not been used since the mid-20th century, though, like “mediaeval”, it is still found as a very sloppy reference even today. In fact, the DA term, even in respect to Europe, has never been particularly good. It nominally refers to periods after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, but that itself largely ignores the fact that the RE then was a pretty sad version of its former self and had been for centuries. When “the enemy at the gates” finally arrived, the gates were flapping on their hinges. What WAS going on, broadly speaking, was an extended period of consolidation of knowledge, represented by encyclopedists like Isidore of Seville, and dozens of commentators on classical and slightly later scholars. Changes were in time marked by the reintroduction of Greek works, especially the scientific ones, through the Moslem expansion starting in the 7th c. and later in Moslem Spain, and notably the emergence of major monastic centers like the many Irish institutions such as St Gall (in Switzerland). Later, the humanistic Greek texts came back, the forerunners of universities in the modern sense, and the beginnings of codified legal systems (distinct from those based on the desires of a particular ruler). So, even in southern Europe, the term “Dark Ages” is a romantic Victorian one, dark only when contrasted to an over-enthusiastic view of “the glory that was Greece and the grandure that was Rome”.

 

Fascinating theme. Both temporal and geographic.