Читать книгу Coin Collecting For Dummies - Neil S. Berman - Страница 11

IN THIS CHAPTER

Moving from a coin admirer to a coin collector

Buying your first coins

Getting the best deal for your coins when it’s time to sell

The first actual coinage as we know it today dates back to the Lydian civilization of about 650 BC. The coins were really nothing more than crude, preweighed pieces of silver, electrum, or gold, stamped with a punch by the king who made them. Soon thereafter, dies were invented that were fancy enough to identify the king who issued the coin and the value that each coin carried in trade.

Formally called coins at this point, those that were available in quantity and found to be reliable in their weight and purity became acceptable to all who traded them. These so-called trade coins started the use of coinage in commerce as we know it today. The trading efficiencies that coins afforded over barter were so great and so obvious that all those in economic power copied the idea to benefit themselves and their own people.

Countless rulers made huge quantities of coins, after which barter became the second-favorite way to trade. Trading with coins and exchanging coins of one country for those of another became a profession. (The traders were the moneychangers and, later, the first bankers.)