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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;lordmarcovan, post: 7453008, member: 10461&quot;]The earliest coins date to around the 600s BC.</p><p><br /></p><p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_coins" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_coins" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_coins</a></p><p><br /></p><p>The earliest <i>dated</i> coins are another matter, and it depends on what one means by &quot;dated&quot;.&nbsp; While most ancient coins were undated, many did have symbols or inscriptions which allow them to be dated.&nbsp; For example, some ancient coins were dated by inscriptions about the regnal year the coin was struck (a specific year in the reign of a ruler- say &quot;Year 1&quot; or &quot;Year 12&quot; or whatever), so scholars today, knowing the years of that ruler&#039;s reign, can specifically date the coins to a particular year.</p><p><br /></p><p>In the Western world, the earliest known coin with an <i>Anno Domini</i> (AD) date is a usually considered to be a denier from Roskilde in Denmark, <a href="https://coinsweekly.com/two-contenders-for-the-first-christian-era-dated-coin/" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://coinsweekly.com/two-contenders-for-the-first-christian-era-dated-coin/" rel="nofollow">dated 1234</a>.&nbsp; (The second interesting coin on that linked page is owned by our very own [USER=73385]@tibor[/USER].)</p><p><br /></p><p>It wasn&#039;t until the 1500s that some Western kingdoms began regularly putting dates on coins in the sort of numerals we recognize today, though the practice did begin a bit earlier than that.</p><p><br /></p><p>Here is a 1550 half-grosz from Polish Lithuania.&nbsp; It is the oldest <i>dated </i>coin in my present collection, but by no means the oldest dated coin I have owned.&nbsp; You can clearly read the &quot;1550&quot; below the knight.</p><p><br /></p><p><img src="https://collectivecoin.imgix.net/MKW2D5g6QgmybnYwA5kH_Lithuania-1550-frame.png" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>Here is the oldest coin (period) in my present collection.&nbsp; It is of course undated, as most ancients were.&nbsp; Having been struck circa 477-388 BC, it is not from the dawn of coinage, but pretty early.&nbsp; The reverse bears a simple quadripartite (four-part) punch mark, which is a hallmark of many very early coins from the Archaic period.</p><p><br /></p><p><img src="https://collectivecoin.imgix.net/tLwHh6LTt6LvUy5fDqbQ_Hekte-frame.png" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" />[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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