Why Dates On Coins?

Is there really a need and value of adding dates to coins other than from a collectors standpoint? Would having dateless coins have curbed the so called hoarders in those years when the mint removed the mint marks in the mid 60's?

 

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That really is a good question though. What difference could it possibly have if coins did not have dates on them? Our Mint and the Mints of other countries shouldn't care how many they made, where they were made or when they were made. Nor is it important who designed the coin so thier initials on coins in unimportant also. Same on our currency. Why the signature of the Secretary of the Treasury on our bills? However, if no dates or mint marks, the people at the Mint would say we have been working our butts off for hundreds of days straight and for 20 hours a day to produce coins and without a date, who could disprove them. So they would put in for massive overtime and our tax dollars would be spent on government workers that did nothing. And we all know that is just not the way things operate in our government.
Now looking back in time, did the ancient Romans or Greeks put dates on their coins? Did thier coins state BC or AD? How come our coins do not say AD after the date? Are we to always assume that our coins are all dated AD even though they don't say so?
And the most important thing about dates on coins is without them, there would be no coin collectors, no Whitman or Dansco Albums, no coin books or magazines and mainly no PCGS web site. No such web site as this so we couldn't ask such quetions and therefore

 

An alternative solution to the hoarders, is to have frozen dates on coins, countries such as Cuba, Ethiopia etc have done this. Spain used to have frozen dates on the Peseta coins, with the actual year in a small star on the coin.

 

The first Pfennig coins from the Federal Republic of Germany (1, 5, 10, 50 Pf) also had the year "1950" ... between 1950 and 1965. Today's coins from DE have "normal" dates, but the year does not necessarily reflect the time of the production. Might as well be the time when the Ministery of Finance ordered the pieces.

The early euro coins do not always show the production year either. France and Germany, for example, both started making € pieces in mid-1998. But all French euro and cent coins are dated 1999 or later (since the euro replaced the pre-euro currencies in 1999) or later, while the German coins are all dated 2002 or later (since the euro cash replaced the pre-euro cash in 2002). Kind of arbitrary but, oh well.

And the new circulation coins from Azerbaijan, the euro lookalikes issued this year, do (AFAIK) not have a year at all. Seems to work for them.

Dates on circulation coins can be helpful if, say, the metallic composition of a certain denomination changes while the design does not. Then it would be difficult to say that "the pieces before 2005 do not work with vending machines" or "coins from before 2000 are no longer legal tender" if the coins had no visible year ...

Christian

 

The vast majority of my coins are dateless, though lack of date doesn't mean they can't be pinpointed to a specific year of mintage, it just makes for a whole lotta sleuthing working with a reference guide, and as it happens that's part of the thrill of collecting for me. Although only collectors of ancient and medieval coins can truly appreciate that one.

 

Change-overs like that often yield interesting things. Same with the switch to decimal (still a bad move i figure), but predecimal coins were still minted into 1970 but the dates had been frozen at 1967 (except shillings which had been frozen at 1966).

The new decimal coins due to replace the old coins were being minted from 1967, except the bronze coins all stated 1971 as the year of issue despite the fact they for the most part were minted in 1968-9 and were released those years, the date specified was the date that they would become legal tender.

I also read somewhere that the UK proofsets from 1972-75 were mostly minted in 1972. Although i can't for the life of me remember where i'd read that. Although 1972 was a fairly quiet year as very little circulation coinage was being produced.

 

As usual with this and other forums we are getting away from the original question, although highly educational about foreign coins now. Is there a need for dates on coins? Many of the statements here are well enough for me to print out for information purposes, but what about the original question?

 

My point was and still is, is that there's no reason for putting dates on coins. If other marks 'mintmarks' were placed on coins instead of dates to determine when a coin was struck (for official record purposes, so they know how many they struck in a year and how fast coins from that year disappear from circulation, so that they can calculate how many will be needed in subsequent years), then no there'd be no reason to keep dates and they could easily be dropped again.

At least that's my take on it.

 

thanks

 

Out of curiosity, when and where did the practice of putting specific dates on coins originate? And what exactly was the reasoning behind doing so?

 

From what I know, and somebody will correct me if I'm wrong , such dates (as the years we are used to) first showed up on Danish coins in the early 13th century. And using such years - first in Roman numerals, later mostly in our variation of Arabic numerals - became quite common in 16th century. Why? I am not sure, but probably because of the increasing international trade. However, years on coins have been used for many more centuries, just in a different way:

Even on old Egyptian, Chinese, Roman ... coins, the year of issue is shown. But they started counting when a ruler became king, emperor, etc. - so you would have coins minted in "Year Twelve of King Soandso". In some cases, that system is even more precise than our year system: The "fiorino" coins from Florence after 1300 or so had a sign that referred to the "ruling" gonfalier. And every six months they had a new gonfalier ...

Christian

 

Another benefit to dates is that subsequent govts could demonitize older coins. Designs usually changed, of course, but dates make it easier to know when the coin/note was made so that wholesale changes are easier. German marks,French Francs, etc, etc. went through many incarnations.

Also, as another post mentioned, when fineness or composition is changed dates make it easier to see what is old and what is new (even for base metal coins) these days.

I suppose there could also be an anti-countefeiting benefit also. A forger has to keep making new dies periodically unless he wants to sttract attention for always having "old" coins. The forgers in Eastern Europe who make UK pound coins try to keep up with the dates, for example.

 

Earliest dated coins

I believe the earliest dated coins were the coins of the Western Kshatrapas in india. The dates are given in the Saka era which commences in AD 78, so they're not tied to the reign of a specific ruler. I only know this, of course, because they're not very expensive and I have an example of one.

 

I haven't sufficiently mastered the art of coint Photography so I can't send a picture of mine, but here's a link to a page with pictures.
The dates on most of the coins are in Brahmi numerals behind the bust on the obverse. I can't read them, but I got mine from an avid collector of western asian coins who told me mine's from the reign of Vijayasena, and is dated SE164 (AD 242)

Link

The dates on the coins on this website are kind of difficult to see. The date on mine is mich clearer. It's a very small silver coin, about the diameter of a US half dime, but thicker.