Was reading in an old geography book and it has a couple years of when coinage first started. Maybe some of you historians can let us know if these dates are correct. The geography book is from 1795. BC894- Money first made of Gold and Silver at Argos. BC269- First coinage of Silver at Rome. BC25- Coin first used in Britain. This is all the book has for BC., havn't checked the AD section yet... Thanx...
I always remembered that the people of Lydia (modern Turkey?) and Chinese were the first, in and around the Seventh Century BC. Addendum - and whilst the Chinese may have had 'money' before then (spade, knife, pants, shirt money?), it wasn't until way later that they started issuing coinage with set standardised measurements, such as the King of Lydia had done.
The book only has 2 more dates; 1320AD Gold first coined in Christendom 1344AD Gold first coined in England I wonder who Eliza Erwin was; name is in book...
How are they defining "Christendom," exactly? Because the Byzantine empire had been making gold since long before this. The Anglo-Saxons made gold coins centuries before this, so this is be incorrect. I'm thinking that this book isn't a very good source for this sort of information. You might want to look elsewhere.
Argos is on the Argolid Plain, on the Peloponnese in Southern Greece. I agree, this book is (at best) woefully out of date.
The book is from 1795. This info came from " A Chronological Table of Remarkable Events, Discoveries, and Inventions" in the back of the book. I was mainly curious about the accuracy of the info in the book. Also in the book it said that the Appalaician Mountains were the largest in North America. We know that isn't so. Thanx everyone...
The Appalachians were the tallest mountains in North America about 440 million years ago. By about 250 million years ago, they had eroded to their present state. Chris
According to the book, History of the United States Mint and its Coinage, the first coin minted during the War for Independence was a very limited amount of copper coins from New Hampshire in 1776. They took 100 pounds of copper and made coins valued at 108 to the Spanish milled dollar. Apparently, it was the first coin made in our young country after independence was declared in 1775.
They were in America, they weren't in the United States yet. The New Hampshire pieces never went beyond the pattern stage and Independence was declared in 1776 not 1775. But declaring independence doesn't mean that much. Independence was not WON or granted until 1783. The first private coins struck in America after we gained our independence were the Nova Constellatio copper. The first coins struck by a government were struck in the country of Vermont in 1785. The first coins struck in the United States after independence were the Connecticut coppers in 1785. And the first coin struck for the United States was the Fugio Cent in 1787.
