What is your oldest ancient coin?

Hi everybody!

Recently, I needed to determine which of my ancient coins was the oldest. Here is mine. According to the attribution it is “Late 4th - early 3rd Centuries B.C.” Won’t you please post your most ancient coin and allow us to gaze upon it? I bet you all have really ancient ancients.

 

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Nice coin @LaCointessa !

Here are a few of my ancient coins...

PERSIA:
I have a Persian at 510 BCE:


Persia Achaemenid Empire Darius I 510-486 BCE AR 0.11g 5mm 1-32nd Siglos Persian hero-king in running incuse Klein 758 Rare


INDIA:
Some content that these Ancient India coins are as far back as 650 BCE:


India Matsya AR Vimsatika 650-600 BCE stamped bankers O-R


India Gandahara AR Bent Bar 11-3g 650-600 BCE RARE two dots - also have on BOTH sides VERY RARE

My coin minted by Buddha's father when Buddha was a Prince (before becoming the Buddha) was minted during his lifetime:
India- Shakya Janapada AR 5-Shana 6th-5th C BCE Buddha Ref-Hiramo-I-8-29 RARE 19 known. Buddha 563-483 BCE

CHINA:


China Shang Dyn 1766-1154 BCE Ant Nose Ge Liu Zhu 2-6g 19-5x11 very scarce H 1.10

 

Great coin. Congratulations.

My oldest one is probably this one:


Ionia, Miletos
AR 1/12 stater
Late 6th Cent. - Early 5th Cent. BCE
Forepart of a roaring lion left
Stellate pattern in incuse square.
9.24mm, 1.26g
SNG Kayhan 465

 

Probably 30 to 40 years after the invention of coinage around the Mediterranean.

Ionia
625 to 600 BC
Uncertain Mint
EL 1/24 Stater
Obvs: Raised swastika
Revs: Incuse square punch
7mm, 0.66g
SNG von Aulock 1778

 

Sweet coin @LaCointessa. I'm pretty sure this one is my oldest.

Lucania, Metapontum, 510 - 470 BC
Silver Stater, 25mm, 7.71 grams
Ear of barley with six grains either side / Incuse of obverse.
Noe202 // HN Italy1482

 

Wow! @Alegandron! 1766 B.C. That's amazing. I will have to come back to your coins and spend time with them! Thanks for posting these. Wow!

 

That roaring lion is fabulous, @Sallent! And the design on the reverse is very appealing.

 

Cool!! Beautiful coin. And it's amazing that gold and silver and traces of other metals can be found naturally together. That's neat. I will study more about that. Your coin is a delicious thing. Thanks for posting it.

 

@Ajax, I think this is the first time I have seen - (or maybe it is the first time I have recognized) a coin where one die was used once. It should have saved a lot of time and energy minting this coin. I guess they struck the incuse of the obverse (did I say that correctly?) and they were done! And this coin is mostly silver but mixed naturally by mother nature with gold and other metals? Sort of the opposite (in terms of metal content) of David@PCC's coin above? I'm intrigued. Are there many coins designed and minted this way?

 

This will be a useful thread for @Curtisimo and me, as we're planning to start a "Time Machine" thread starting with the earliest coins and moving forward through history. We need to figure out where to start! (One tricky thing will be to decide what counts as a coin...)

My oldest western coin is a heavier coin (hekte, 2.53g 9mm) from the same series as David's above, minted in northern Ionia (struck on the Phokaic standard), 625-600 BC:


My oldest Chinese coins(?) are probably these imitation cowries in clay, bone, and bronze.

My (limited) understanding: actual cowries were in use in Southern China as some sort of money as early as 2000 BC, and these imitations are found more in the North where cowries were much harder to come by. They may be grave goods rather than money, although it's thought the bronze versions probably were actually money. The earliest securely dated bronze versions I'm aware of were found in a tomb from 900 BC. One would think that some of the bone examples have been carbon dated... @TypeCoin971793? In any case, they're almost certainly older than the earliest western coins. (@Alegandron's ant nose money is based on the cowrie, mostly found within the borders of the Chu state, and I believe they're generally dated to the Warring States period... so not as old as Gandalf says, more like 5th c. BC. But maybe he knows that particular type has an earlier date?)

There are also some very early knives and spades that were certainly used as money. Hopefully TypeCoin will post some of the neat stuff he has.

Finally, a couple of Janapada coins from India. Gandhara janapada coins, like this 1/4 shatamana, are hard to date (I think) as some were minted before the Persian conquest (as early as 650 or 600 BC) and some were minted after:


Vatsa janapada, as early as 500 BC:

 

My oldest is a Seleucid Serrate, probably late 3rd century B.C. Obverse photo is a bit blurry, so sorry about that. This is one of the first coins I tried to photograph.

 

So cool @Severus Alexander! This could be an article for the CT front page. I wonder, The cowrie shell idea for trade - did it come from Africa? India? When I was making earrings years ago of natural materials, someone gave me some really old African beads. I never used them. I still have them in there. Think I should pull them out and see what the heck they are? There must be examples of authentic cowrie 'money' upon which the Chinese were basing their cowrie shells. I should Google.

 

I love these coins!
I wonder what a it would look like if there were a time line of a type of coin from the oldest BC to the most modern version.

I wonder if there is a coin style that has endured.
Surely, the profile of ruler on the obverse and wheat on the reverse must be one that has survived until today. Yes, I think @Curtisimo did write an article showing us that.

 

It's interesting how much modern coin designs have drawn from classical styles and themes. Just a few examples.







Edit to add: I will refrain from posting my oldest because I don't want to disappoint my friend @Severus Alexander with the fact she still isn't free. Instead I will just leave you with this stand in...

 

Athena and the owl (late fifth century), as well as Seleucus I (late 4th century).

 

Oh Yes! Fun! It reminds me of @RAGNAROK and the Celtic coin design that grew increasingly more abstract (yet still recognizable) over time!

Speaking about abstract are there no high quality abstract coins being minted these days? If not, why doesn't someone get some silver and some gold and get some highfalutin artist to design two cool dies and then mint some abstract design coins? Pay the artist in resulting coins. Number them like prints - 501/20,000 - with artist's initials. Website should indicate which issues are owned (even if by an alias) - Gee whiz!@Curtisimo, can you please get to work on this? Thank you.

 

Beautiful, @7Calbrey. And I looked for the little dots under the tail of your owl. Looks good to me with all of my three minutes of ancient coin collecting! Your coins are beautiful. Glad you posted them.

 

APOLLONIA PONTIKA
AR Hemiobol
OBVERSE: Anchor, A in field
REVERSE: Swastika with two parallel lines in each quadrant
Struck at Apollonia Pontika, circa 500BC
.28g, 6.54mm
SNG BM 149; Moushmov 3146
ex. Aegean Numismaics

 

I love comparing my modern gold France 20 Francs whose design is similar to my Roman Republic Didrachm:


RR 265-242 BCE Didrachm Roma-Victory Crawford 22-1 Sear 25

And I am sure that Rome probably copied it from an earlier Greek design...

 

You may be receiving this extra Secret Saturnalia present soon... betcha can't guess what it is!