What I consider the end of Ancient Coins- First Milled coins.

Being new here it was tough to get used to all the modern coin threads mixed in with the ancient coins, I found it almost necessary to show you guys what I think is one of the first modern coins and the end of the "ancient" coins. I know some of the learned scholarly folk are gonna burn me at the stake for this. It ends when the coin was first made by machine. The first modern coin!



One of the first machine made coins.

United Kingdom, London c. 1562 AD
The Elizabeth I Tudor milled 6 Pence (2.83g) 24.2mm
Obverse: Bust of the Virgin Queen
Reverse: Coat of Arms

 

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Not so sure I agree, but it's as good as any other end/start time I suppose.

 

You have the floor, what do you think?

 

Cool coin. Would love to get one later down the road. Same with her dad.

 

Love it!
I'm also a British coin collector, so right up my alley!

My opinion on Period: It depends on the place.

England: Whenever they stopped making Roman/Celtic style coins. By 800 (I think.. I'm away from my book), they were midieval. Went to modern with the first milled coins, IMHO.

When Islamic coins were made in an area, that was when I would say they are midieval.

Byzantine is Ancient until the start of Aspron Trachy's and the end of the Solidi.

Not sure how to do China thought...

 

that's a cool coin AN....coins minted after 1500 go in with my modern coins, good a place to split 'em up as any.

 

Forgot to mention I myself consider coins minted after 1492 "Columbus" the beginning of early modern.

 

To be honest, I'm not certain where I think the break might be, but I think 1562 AD with the first machined coin is too late. I think I see it somewhere closer to the end of the Byzantine Era, maybe even closer to the crusades as the end of "Ancient" coinage and the beginning of more modern hammered coins.

 

Personally, I would view the first machine struck coin the delineation of medieval and modern coinage.

For the delineation between ancient and medieval, I say the end of western Rome in the west, the rise of islam in the mideast, and the Tang dynasty in China. Not perfect, but pretty close to each other, and historically justifiable. Byzantine coins are commonly collected by ancient collectors, but technically to me are medieval.

 

Hi Anoob, how's the little noobster doing,getting any sleep, love your coin, there's a gap between Ancient and modern, this coin fills the gap..awesome.:thumb:

 

That is a great coin which is filled with so much history. :thumb: That said, we should remember that the milled coinage of Elizabeth I was just a brief aberration.

http://encyclopedia-of-money.blogspot.com/2010/04/milled-edge-coinage.html

Despite these early efforts at milled coinage, hammered coinage continued to be the norm (with a few subsequent sporadic and unsuccessful efforts at milled coinage). A century later Charles II finally universalized milled coinage in 1662/63.

For me, modern coinage didn’t begin until 1696 and the Re-coinage Act of Parliament (this is taken from a previous post of mine):

For me, modern coinage nearly coincides with the earliest stirrings of The Enlightenment and one of its greatest manifestations--England's Glorious Revolution (1688).


guy

 

I also think the end of the Eastern Empire is too soon but perhaps 1500AD too late, like Bing I'd be happier with something around the crusades.

Remember though we're on the 'darkside' where we don't all need to be singing from the same hymn sheet, thank god

 

I hope everyone paid attention to Bart9349's post on this being a temporary trial in modern coin production. I have three Elizabeth 6d coins and the milled one is the earliest of the three. Several more kings will come and go before England returns to the milled idea and abandons the hammer. I really do not know where to draw the line between medieval and modern England.

Another coinage that needs to be mentioned in this regard is that of Russia. When it comes to being medieval, the 'wire' money of Ivan the Terrible seems properly placed. However after looking at very few coins you start seeing what appears to be die duplicates. It turns out that they made duplicate dies (hubbing) so there are actually many dies striking identical designs just like we do in the modern era. These 'ancient' looking scraps of silver turn out to be very high tech and modern in their own way. Looking at a Peter I wire of 1600, it is hard not to see the past. The same Tsar blew a whistle and ended the past in his country in many ways. One was his issue of very modern large silver rubles.

We return to the fact that history does not break into neat, conveniently labelled chunks.

 

Technology certainly doesn't progress in a linear fashion. If ancient coinage ended in 1562, nobody bothered to tell the early colonists of New England, who reverted to the crudest type of incuse-stamped issues in 1652, the NE Shillings...

 

Impressive shilling. I don't have a real one, mine is lead. Where did you find yours?

 

Lordy, that's not mine - it's a stock photo. I couldn't possibly afford one, and neither would I acquire one if I could afford it. It just doesn't hold enough numismatic interest, aside from its historical importance.

 

For me I see the end of ancient coinage in 491 AD, the end of Zeno's reign and the start of Anastasius's reign as the beginning of medieval (Zeno starts his reign in the ancient era, making him the last Roman emperor to do so, but it continues into the early medieval period. Since there is no way to exactly date his coins and determine which are "ancient" and which are "medieval", for sake of convenience I consider any coinage "ancient" until the end of his reign in 491 AD. Anastasius suceeds him as emperor and since he is the first to start his reign after 476, I see any coinage after 491 until 1453/late 15th century as medieval). Also, Zeno is in RIC but Anastasius isn't; e is the first in the Byzantine coin series, so I think this sort of supports my view a little.

 

I dunno, as long as there is coinage with a hole in it, we never stopped the ancient trend -