Circular History

By William Bubelis
Associate Professor of Classics
Curator, John Max Wulfing Coin Collection

As physical objects one can touch and hold, coins connect us directly to whole epochs of the past and to a vast range of human experience. All of the essential features of a coin in one’s pocket originated at the initial invention of coinage itself some 2,600 years ago in Lydia (now western Turkey). Coins are best described as pieces of metal that serve as a store of value and a medium of exchange by virtue of the authority of whoever issued them (and that authority is signified by whatever images, marks, and legends the coins bear).

The Lydians and Greeks struck the earliest coins on small lumps of alluvial gold (electrum) whose value was so unpredictable as to require an official mark of authority in order to guarantee a coin’s value. Curiously, the precise purpose of those earliest of coins remains a mystery since coins were not intrinsically necessary for commerce. When weighed out on a scale in the form of ingots or old jewelry, raw silver and gold bullion had long served ancient Near Eastern societies. But because they can be counted, coins offer a great advantage to those who use them.

Top: An electrum coin from the time of Lydian kings Alyattes to Kroisos (c. 610–546 B.C.), with a lion's head and beaming sun. Bottom: A tetradrachm of Athens (5th century B.C.) features the profile of Athena and an owl.Coinage spread rapidly in the Mediterranean world and began to take on the look and feel of something we immediately recognize. Coins are usually struck under great pressure with dies that may be engraved with as wide an array of images, marks, ornament, and legends as one can imagine. The artistry with which engravers cut those images is often astonishing. Greek and Roman coins are sculptures in miniature that established what we think a coin should look like: a disc that has one side (the obverse) bearing a bust or portrait, such as that of a god or king, and the other side (the reverse) that has an image signifying the authority of whoever minted the coin, and thus guaranteeing its value. Coins have thus always served as instruments by which an authority — whether the Roman emperors, the Medici of Florence, or the early American republic — has expressed its identity and aspirations.

Once issued by their mint, though, coins have a life of their own, such as being fashioned into jewelry or tokens. Counterfeits tell their own story, too, and coins sometimes bear countermarks (often miniature images themselves) that served to test, validate or revalue a coin whose authenticity was questionable. And paper currency, though a relatively recent invention, takes this story in still further directions.

But it is the Romans and their successors in Europe to whom we can trace a direct lineage backward from the coins in our own pockets. For instance, our coins like the dime still outwardly imitate the color of silver that until 1964 was the standard metal with which dimes were struck. The 1-cent piece (our penny) ultimately likewise owes its appearance to Greek and Roman bronze coins.

Yet the name penny descends directly from the Roman denarius, a silver denomination likely invented in 212 B.C. in order to pay for infrastructure like aqueducts and roads. It may sound like alchemy to change silver into copper (and our pennies are not even pure copper anymore), but the reason for this transformation is a historical one. Coins have always been minted on distinct weight standards that tie each denomination to a certain amount of metal, and hence to a certain value. Standards usually fall over time, and not even the Romans could maintain the denarius.

Nonetheless, their successors in mediaeval Europe applied that name to the principal coin of the realm for centuries and created new names for more valuable coins when new sources of silver radically transformed the European economy. Our dollar, after all, takes its name from a shortened form of St. Joachimsthaler, which was first applied by 1520 to comparatively huge coins struck from silver mined in the valley (thal) of St. Joachim (now in the Czech Republic). As neighboring mints struck similarly large coins and the practice spread across much of Europe, the Dutch called their version a leeuwendaaler after the heraldic lion that it bore, which in turn became the dollar that the Americans and English termed the Spanish coins that dominated early American commerce. (In fact, because communities like St. Louis relied heavily upon Spanish, French and other foreign coins coins it was not until 1857 that Congress prohibited their use of as legal tender in the U.S.) Hence, the penny still retains the illustrious name of its much more valuable ancestor, right alongside that of a newcomer, the dollar.

What coins teach us, therefore, involves a fascinating nexus of art, culture, history, government, metallurgy and economics. In the study of coins and currency (numismatics), scholars aim not only to reconstruct the history of individual coins and mints but also to situate them in a wider cultural and historical context. This work often requires minute examination of the coins as well as building a statistical picture of a whole coinage. Thus, scholars must see as wide a range of coins as possible, usually in exceptional condition. Washington University is now partnering with the Eric P. Newman Numismatic Education Society to create the Newman Numismatic Portal, which will grant scholars unparalleled access to a true compendium of American coins and currency. By digitizing Mr. Newman’s collection, this project will radically advance our knowledge of coins and currency, right down to the penny in your pocket.