When did the modern world coin era begin?

Maybe it's just a matter of time period and not so much how coins were produced or what the coins were made of or even what they depict.

Furthermore, it [time period] could just be relative to the person observing it.

I'm good with the current system.

 

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Saying that coins made after a certain year are almost always junk would be apodictic for me. But even in arts, architecture, etc. there are people who say that almost everything made in the past, say, 50 years is trash. Obviously I do not share that view, but we all have different personal opinions.

For much of Europe, the end of WW2 in 1945 would be a good starting point, except that political and monetary "stabilization" took a little, hence my suggestion of roughly 1950. For most of Africa, the "line" would be about 1960.

From a technical point of view, hammered vs milled is an important "break" too, but many aspects of coinage came much later, notably the idea that coins - like notes - are basically vouchers that could in theory be made from any material. Guess that, after a few more posts, we will still not come to any kind of agreement, but we'll have a fine compilation of possible criteria ...

Christian

 

Pretty much every recent commemorative silver/gold dollar coin issued by the US is in the NCLT category too: If I have to pay, say, 50 dollars, for a piece with a face value of $1, that is a piece which is not intended for circulation. Liberia, Palau, etc. just take it one step further; in those cases there is no or hardly any domestic market for the issues.

Here in the euro area we have another criterion: The euro "collector coins" are, contrary to the circulation coins and the €2 commems, legal tender in the issuing member state only. Most of them are surcharged too, but even collector coins that can be had at face do not actually circulate.

Christian

 

Technically, circulating on the bourse floor of a major show still qualifies as circulation in my book in some cases. I would define a NCLT coin as a coin never designed to circulate, which would include any 0.999 fine silver or gold since such an non-alloyed metal clearly is not designed to circulate. However, even enamel painted copper-nickel specimens from the Cook Islands would probably hold-up pretty well if they ever did in fact circulate, and in fact, many of them do circulate if you include the incidental wear they sustain being banged around inside coin dealer junk boxes.

 

For UK coins, it's 1816, the advent of the new coining presses. The entire coinage was overhauled at that date, so it is a significant milestone.

Copper gave way to bronze starting in 1861.

And then of course, the UK went decimal in 1971, with the first decimals appearing from 1968.

Addendum: Of course, as Moneyer12 states, 1668 was also a big date in UK coinage terms (see his post above).



So it depends on your scope of the definition of "modern".

 

In Italy, "Modern Era" is from 1492 (discovery of America) to 1789 (French Revolution)...then we talk of "Contemporary Era".
In numismatics, according with Italian catalogs, Contemporary Era starts few years later, in 1796 (Napoleon in Italy), and arrives...today.

petronius :smile

 

I kinda like this, even though it's somewhat eurocentric and would not work for Asia, I would consider this for European coinage. To add; 1999 or 2000 coinage could be considered the Union or EU era. The plus or minus, depending on how you feel about the Euro coinage, is that we lived to see history in the making and that's something at least.

 

We've been babbling for 4000 years. Few seem to notice it though.

The language is "confused" yet everyone seems to think they know what everyone is thinking.

The most useful definition for "modern" as it applies to world coins is when precious metals were removed from that nations coinage. Of course no term ever fits the real world precisely because the real world is more complicated. Most countries started their moderns sometime after WW II.

I've long suspected this was planned at Yalta.

 

In Australian, "modern coins" refer to coins minted after 1966, when we introduced decimal currency for the first time.

The different collecting areas are:
-Colonial
-Trade coinage (aka gold)
-Pre-decimal (aka Commonwealth)
-Decimal (or moderns)

Some collectors use "modern" to refer exclusively to modern mint product or NCLT, but other collectors refer to any decimal coins as "modern".

 

Collectors in each country are, of course, entitled to define their terms as they see fit and in this case I agree with the definition. Not only were decimal coins introduced in 1966 but the silver was removed frm everything but the half dollar and it lasted only a single year. Krause lists a lot of the modern Australia at much higher prices in the 2012 catalog and I anxiously look forward to seeing what they did in the 2013 that is being released today.

I've always considered the 1968 10c as a key date and it is one on which the price "popped".

I sure would like to have found a lot more of the 20c's over the years but these were few and far between.