Being made in most ages of precious metal, or alternatively possessing a substantial token value, coins have always been prized, often hoarded, and, therefore, frequently buried for safety. The contents of such savings banks have been dug up in all ages, so that the coins of past civilizations continue to be found in vast numbers. Studied alongside literary or archaeological evidence, they yield a wide range of information that is especially valuable for chronology and economic history. Coins may reflect the wealth and power of cities and states, and study of their distribution may help to define the physical extent of territorial dominion or to illustrate major commercial connections. Thus, the popularity in ancient times of Athenian coins in the Levant and of Corinthian silver in Magna Graecia (southern Italy) testifies to established trade links. Finds of early Roman imperial gold in India corroborate the reference of the Roman historian Pliny the Elder to the drain on Roman gold to pay for Indian and other Eastern luxuries. Likewise, huge finds of Arab silver coins in Scandinavia show the extent of trade, in particular the demand for furs by the ʿAbbāsid caliphs and the Sāmānid rulers of Iran. One result of such widespread commercial contacts is that certain currencies acquired special international preeminence. In ancient times, those of Athens, Corinth, and Philip II of Macedon were widely popular. The uniform coinage of Philip's son Alexander the Great was struck at mints widely scattered throughout his vast empire and was universally accepted. In medieval times, the gold dinars (a term derived from the Roman denarius) of the early caliphs and the gold ducats of Florence and Venice played a similar role—as did the silver dollars of Mexico, the Maria Theresa of Austria, and the gold sovereigns of Great Britain in modern times. Moreover, the study of depreciation and debasement of coinage may illuminate past national financial distress. For example, the heavily alloyed 3rd-century-AD Roman antoniniani (coins introduced by the Roman emperor Caracalla, originally having a value of two denarii) tell their tale as clearly as the depreciating paper currency of Germany in and after 1919.

It was in Italy and Sicily that the finest work appeared. In Italy, Tarentine silver continued its type of Taras on a dolphin. In the middle of the 5th century the agonistic type showing a horseman appeared; the celebrated Tarentine cavalry was thus commemorated down to the middle of the 4th century. About 340 Tarentum issued very beautiful gold coins with a head of Persephone and, on the reverse, the infant Taras appealing to Zeus enthroned. Heraclea, founded in the middle of the 5th century, issued fine staters with a helmeted Athena and Heracles seated or strangling or wrestling with a lion. Metapontum introduced a most striking head of its founder, Leucippus. Other mints of the time were at Neapolis, with its types of the siren Parthenope and her father, the man-headed bull Achelous; at Velia, with its head of a nymph and, on the reverse, the eastern type of a lion attacking a bull; at Thurium, with its unusually fine head of Athena and the powerful bull on the reverse; and at Terina, remarkable for its beautiful treatment of the Victory type.

In Sicily, and particularly in Syracuse, the engraver (engraving)'s art reached perfection. The coins of Syracuse showed many varieties of the heads of Arethusa and Persephone, and the chariot of the reverse was found capable of varied treatment. After the middle of the 5th century, artists began to sign their work, and it is thus possible to prove that other towns engaged engravers from Syracuse. The Syracusan coinage was mainly silver. During the siege by the Athenians, beautiful little gold coins were struck with, reverse, Heracles strangling a lion. With the prosperity following the enemy's defeat, Syracusan art reached its zenith. As the Demareteion commemorated the defeat of the Carthaginians, so the great series of decadrachms perpetuated the memory of the victory of 413 over the Athenians. The agonistic types and the word athla on some of them show that they were distributed at the games held to celebrate the victory; their types were widely copied, and their engravers, Cimon and Euainetos, gained a place among the world's greatest artists.

The coinage of Alexander established a new style: the coin portrait became an almost regular feature in Greek currency that was predominantly regal. The portrait, however, was not at first that of a living monarch. Philip II and Alexander were content with their names on their coins, of which the obverses showed, for Philip, Apollo and Zeus and, for Alexander, Heracles and Athena. Alexander added the title basileus (king) only after his Persian conquest. After his death his deified portrait appeared on the coins of Lysimachus in Thrace and on the early coins of Ptolemy I (Ptolemy I Soter) in Egypt. It was not until 306 that a living king put his own portrait on his coins, when Ptolemy I appeared, still as god, with the aegis of Zeus. Seleucus I (Seleucus I Nicator) similarly put himself on his coins as Dionysus; in time the divine attribute was dropped, and the ruler appeared as a mortal wearing only the royal diadem. In Macedonia, Arrhidaeus, Cassander, and Antigonus still followed the types of Alexander; and the early coins of Demetrius I Poliorcetes (336–283) were without a portrait. Soon, however, his own portrait appeared, still with the horns that deify him. His successor had only types of deities. Pyrrhus did not appear on any of his extensive coinages, but the last two kings of Macedonia, Perseus and Philip V, left very fine portraits. The kings of Pontus, notably Mithradates VI, had a magnificent series of portraits. The kings of Pergamum used the same portrait throughout, that of the founder of the dynasty, Philetairus I, and the Ptolemies in Egypt throughout their long series used only the head and legend of Ptolemy I, except on certain special issues. Among the early Seleucids, Antiochus I was reluctant to drop the portrait of Seleucus I, but the portrait of the reigning monarch became the rule.

After the vast issues of gold by Philip II, Alexander (under whom its price in relation to silver cheapened to 1:10 from 1:13 or more), and Lysimachus, gold was but rarely struck. Silver was the general metal of coinage; the Attic standard, which Alexander had adopted for his tetradrachms, became the monetary standard of the Western world, and there was a great increase in the bronze coinage. Egypt, however, kept to its own standards and to gold.

After the Roman conquest of Greece it is clear from the resumed activity of the mints that the Greek cities were autonomous in one respect at least, for the silver coinage required in Greek territory could be supplied only by Greek mints, the task being beyond the power of Rome at this time. The Thessalians (Thessaly) issued silver coins of the type of Zeus and Athena and the legend Thessalon; a similar coinage was issued by the Boeotians. Maronea and Thasos issued tetradrachms that became a great commercial currency for trade across the Danube with the Scythians and Celts who imitated them. Macedonia itself issued tetradrachms bearing the names of Roman governors. In Asia, after the defeat of Antiochus III at Magnesia, there was an outburst of tetradrachms of Attic weight and local types at towns such as Lampsacus, Smyrna, and Magnesia. Other cities resumed the issue of Alexander tetradrachms, continuing to the middle of the 2nd century, when the Roman province of Asia was set up and cistophori replaced them. These, so called from the Dionysian chest (the sacred box or basket carried in the worship of Dionysus, usually shown containing snakes), which formed the principal type, were first struck at Pergamum after 228 BC; the reverse is a bow in a case between two serpents.

It is the reverse types of this series of coins that give them their importance. The coins of Athens preserve representations of many statues famous in antiquity that have long since perished, such as the Athena Parthenos of Phidias; the great Athena Promachos on the Acropolis, visible far out at sea; or the Dionysus of Alcamenes, possibly a pupil of Phidias. A coin of Elis preserves the Olympian Zeus of Phidias (Zeus, Statue of), and one of Lacedaemon the Apollo of Amyclae, near Sparta. Local cults and incidents in the lives of the Greek divinities are common types. Local celebrities are also recorded, for example, Homer at several of the various towns that claimed him as a native (notably Smyrna), Anacreon at Teos, Sappho at Eresus in Lesbos, Herodotus at Halicarnassus, and Alcaeus at Mytilene, which recorded on its coins a whole series of its famous men, most otherwise unknown. Reverse types also represent many architectural views of great importance, and the celebration of games and festivals is frequently recorded on coins.

Adjustment of the previously fluctuating relationship between bronze and silver was first secured by the issue about 211 BC of the silver denarius (marked X—i.e., 10 bronze asses), together with fractional coins, also of silver (marked V—i.e., five; and IIS—i.e., 2 ¹/₂ asses—a sesterce, or sestertius). The denarii were lighter than the quadrigati; their types were a Roma head on the obverse, with the Dioscuri (the twin deities Castor and Pollux) and ROMA on the reverse. Their production came to be confined principally to the mint of Rome. The victoriates, again lighter (their weight standard had come from Illyria), were issued until about 150 BC, being perhaps intended for principal circulation outside Italy. The denarius, however, quickly established itself as the major currency in the central and western Mediterranean. In its eastward expansion, Rome learned to make use of local currencies—gold staters of Macedonia and silver tetradrachms of Athens or Asia. Rome was also prepared to employ Macedonian gold in the west, as was shown by the release to western markets of large quantities of gold staters after about 150 BC. In the 2nd century BC, Roman coinage in gold was exceptional. Coinage in bronze, however, continued, but further variation in silver–bronze values was seen in two developments. The as dropped in weight to that of an uncia and then less, becoming a token currency; together with its fractions, it was now always struck and not cast. The value of the denarius in terms of bronze was altered, being revalued about 133 at 16 instead of 10 asses; the silver quinarius (now of eight asses and with the types of the victoriate) became rare; and the silver sesterce (now equal to four asses) virtually disappeared. After about 80 BC the striking of bronze was discontinued until the time of Caesar.

Augustus (27 BC–AD 14) based the coinage on the aureus of ¹/₄₂ of a pound of gold, equivalent to 25 denarii, each of ¹/₈₄ of a pound of silver, the metals being struck almost pure. The denarius was valued at 16 asses. Token coinage consisted henceforth of brass sesterces and dupondii (equal to four and two asses, respectively), with copper asses, halves, and quarters, the as being the most common. Nero in AD 64 lightened aureus and denarius to ¹/₄₅ and ¹/₉₆, respectively, but debasement of silver subsequently took place. Under Septimius Severus it reached 40 percent, and Caracalla issued a debased double denarius of the weight of only 1 ¹/₂ denarii. Gallienus' double denarius of copper and silver, leached to give a more silver-rich surface, marked a monetary breakdown, only partially cured when Diocletian and Constantine again made gold the firm basis for supplementary pure silver and abundant copper coinage.

The use of Caesar's own portrait upon coinage set a precedent; although under Augustus and Tiberius token denominations occasionally lacked the imperial portrait, it was thereafter an essential element of virtually every gold, silver, and bronze coin of the official mints, as also of nearly all provincial and local coins. Emphasis on the personality of the emperor (extended sometimes to empresses, sons, or deceased members of the imperial house) was a powerful propaganda instrument in a coinage that circulated throughout a vast empire. The great series of imperial portraits, from Augustus to Romulus in AD 476, is artistically outstanding. Many of the finest appeared on the large brass sesterces down to the 3rd century and on the even larger bronze medallions produced for presentation; but particular care was taken over the portraits for gold, which, being softer, showed a beautiful and highly sensitive impression. Nothing is known of the portrait artists, though it is likely that they were often from the Greek East.

Diocletian's institution of the tetrarchy (tetrarch), by which the empire was divided administratively between two Augusti and two Caesars, brought fundamental changes in social and economic policy; the instability of prices called for complete renewal of the monetary system. His coinage reforms took place in stages from about 286 to about 296. First, new aurei were struck at 60 to the pound of gold. Then, about 293–294, new silver coins, of good purity, were struck at the revised Neronian weight of 96 to the pound of silver. Finally, about 294–296, new copper coins appeared that were larger and intrinsically more valuable than the small debased double denarii of previous reigns. The contemporary names of these silver and copper pieces are not known. This reformed coinage was struck at a variety of mints from Londinium (London) to Alexandria, most of which coined in all three metals. Types were closely controlled in the silver and copper coinage; in the latter the almost universal type was for some years that of the “Genius Populi Romani.” The obverse bore the portrait of one or other of the tetrarchs, each of whom coined with portraits of all four.

From 312, when Constantine (Constantine I) became emperor of the West, coin types began to show new tendencies. The imperial portrait was still the dominant feature. Reverses displayed complementary themes—the glory of the army, vows for continued imperial rule, the constant struggle against barbarian pressure on the frontiers. The old variety of pagan gods—Jupiter excepted—mainly disappeared, though Sol, popular from Aurelian onward, was used, especially by Constantine. Christian emblems did little to take their place, though the Christian monogram, the Greek letters chi and rho superimposed, sometimes on a standard, began to appear with Constantine and was combined with the alpha and omega under Constantius II and Magnentius. On the whole, however, there was an unavowed truce between Christianity and paganism, only occasionally broken, as when Julian revived a range of pagan types; the full development of the Christian tradition in coinage was reserved for Byzantium.

In Italy Odoacer (476–493) had coined in silver and bronze at Ravenna after setting up a Teutonic kingdom. The Ostrogothic (Ostrogoth) coinage that followed, from Theodoric (493–526) onward, consisted of gold, mainly imitating current Byzantine issues and with the imperial portrait (Theodoric's fine portrait on a unique triple solidus is wholly exceptional). Silver and bronze were supplementary. The Lombards (Lombard) of Italy (568–774) had no distinctive coinage of their own until the gold struck in the name of Grimoald, duke of Beneventum (662–671), which was followed by gold and silver from a number of mints elsewhere. In Africa the Vandal kings Gunthamund (484–496) and Hilderic (523–?530) issued silver and bronze coinage, respectively, inscribed with their names; the types and denominations looked to imperial models and, in the case of the bronze, to those of Carthage especially. Vandal gold was perhaps struck by Gaiseric (428–477) or Huneric (477–484) in the Byzantine emperor's name, but in the absence of any royal monogram it cannot easily be attributed. The chief Spanish coinage was that of the Visigoths (Visigoth), who controlled southern Gaul also and—after Leovigild (568–586)—Suevia (modern Galicia), with its rich gold mines; hence the fact that of 79 Visigothic mints a high proportion was concentrated in northwestern Spain. Visigothic gold coinage was produced up to the Arab invasion in the 8th century and consisted almost entirely of thirds, at first imitating Byzantine models, and bearing kings' names and titles. The most prolific mints were Mérida, Toledo, Sevilla, Tarragona, and Córdoba.

Inspiring many features of these transient coinages, but outliving them all, stood the currency of the Byzantine Empire. It was based on the gold solidus (¹/₇₂ of a pound) of Constantine—the bezant of 4.5 grams (about 70 grains) maximum, which dominated so much of European trade to the 13th century. Until the 10th century, halves and thirds were also used. This gold was proverbial for its purity until the 10th century. The fundamentally religious nature of the empire was fully reflected in the coinage: throughout 10 centuries there was scarcely a single issue that did not look directly to the Christian (Christianity) faith, since apart from reverse types and legends, which were purely religious, the obverses showed the emperors as specifically Christian rulers by the use of adjuncts or appropriate inscriptions.

For gold, the earliest obverses were diademed profile busts or helmeted facing busts, both common on previous coins of eastern and western empires. The facing bust showed the emperor in military panoply with a cross in his hand or on his helmet, and, if the cross was lacking on the obverse, it appeared on the reverse. With Justin I (518–527) and Justinian I (527–565), the seated figures of the emperors were shown side by side (527). Thereafter, the facing head became more common: from the time of Phocas (602–610) it was increasingly formalized, a process that reached its climax in the 8th century. Under Heraclius (610–641) the habit began of showing the emperor with one or more of his sons; and, with figure types now more common, it was possible to show emperor and empress together or even, as with John I Tzimisces (969–976), the emperor being crowned by the Virgin, with the hand of God above. The reverses of the gold coins at first emphasized the Victory (doubtless regarded as an angel) of previous issues. Tiberius II introduced the cross potent on steps, a type destined to play a long and important part. Justinian II (685–711) was the first to use the haloed bust of Christ, who had previously been shown only on a coin of about 450, in the act of marrying the empress Pulcheria to Marcian. The Iconoclasm of Leo III (717–741) and his successors banished such divine representations in favour either of the cross on steps or of imperial figures on the reverses, but with Michael III (842–867) the bust of Christ returned. From Basil I the throned Christ predominated.

The obverses of the silver coins, beginning with profile busts, thereafter included seated figures, facing busts, and purely epigraphic designs. The introduction of the larger hexagram by Heraclius in 615 allowed fuller scope for later designers, whose reverses often consisted of a cross on steps or a bust of Christ surrounded by inscriptions; from the 10th century the cross bore a central portrait medallion of the emperor himself.

In bronze coinage there was at first less flexibility. The earliest types were, obverse, a profile bust and, reverse, a cross and mark of value. Under Justinian I the facing bust prevailed, and in his 12th year he introduced the dating of his bronze coins on the reverse, in the form Anno XII; the inclusion of a regnal date was thereafter normal on bronze until Constans II (Constans II Pogonatus) (641–668). From the time of Justin II (565–578) the obverses showed two or more standing imperial figures combined (until Basil I) with the mark of value. From the 10th century the reverses were taken up wholly by three or four lines of inscription; and the anonymous bronze coins of John Tzimisces combined such a reverse, reading Iesus Christus Basileu(s) Basile(on), with a new obverse showing the facing bust of Christ designated Emmanuel.

Louis I (814–840) continued his father's monetary system with little essential change. But the infringement of his minting rights emphasized the economic importance of northern ports, especially the Frisian Duurstede, from the neighbourhood of which emanated large numbers of copies of his gold sous and half-sous. These portrait coins originally were designed presumably for presentation to the Holy See, since the reverse bore the inscription MVNVS DIVINVM around a cross. They were struck sparingly, and no Carolingian gold thereafter appeared. Charlemagne's pattern of coinage, sometimes varied, was extended to Lotharingia, with such powerful mints as Cologne, Metz, Trier, and Strasbourg. From the time of the French kings Louis II and III (Louis III) (877–882) the Carolingian currency pattern weakened, and feudal coinages made their first appearances. Louis IV d'Outremer granted coinage rights to the archbishop of Reims as early as 850, and the system was swiftly developed in the 10th century, concessions being made to a large number of ecclesiastical foundations and even in a few cases to lay lords as well. In Spain, Carolingian mints were established only in the extreme northeast, at Barcelona, Ampurias, and Gerona. The kingdom of Aquitaine, under Charlemagne, was reserved to the Frankish king's son, and its coins were modeled on the Carolingian pattern. Northern Italy was an integral part of the territories controlled by the earlier Carolingians, but from the mid-9th century changes began to show: the deniers of Pavia and Milan, though retaining Carolingian types, became broader and thinner, with wide rims like those of the later German bracteates (see below Italy and Sicily (coin)). Venice, a republic from the late 7th century, ruled by a doge under Byzantine protection, did not coin until the 9th, when it struck deniers for the Carolingians; but after Lothar I it omitted mention of the imperial name. At Rome papal (papacy) coinage began with Adrian I (772–795), Byzantine in style and types, but after Charlemagne's visit in 774 all deniers (except during an imperial interregnum) were struck jointly with the pope's monogram and the emperor's name, until 904; thenceforth, the papal name appeared in full and alone. The principalities of Beneventum and Salerno and the duchies of Naples and Amalfi fell within the Byzantine–Arab orbit, and their gold, silver, and bronze showed these beside Carolingian influences; bronze coins in particular followed Byzantine models, while the gold tari of Salerno were curious fractional copies of Arab dinars. In central Europe, Carolingian coinage was not reflected east of the Rhineland, but in the north the imitation of Carolingian money in or around Duurstede bred more distantly derivative issues elsewhere, possibly even in Scandinavia; these were, in effect, silver deniers, but their types, with their emphasis on ships and animal designs, show them to belong to the Nordic, as opposed to the Teutonic, stream of monetary design.

Early in the 17th century the use of machinery for coining was the subject of experiments by Nicolas Briot; both he and Jean Warin were famous for their technique and style under Louis XIII. The late 17th and 18th centuries, though their coinage was of considerable external magnificence, were not devoid of monetary difficulty. Louis XV suppressed independent local minting, Strasbourg being the last provincial mint to survive, though royal branch mints continued. Under the Revolution Louis XVI coined first as constitutional king, in gold, silver, and copper; but from 1793 the issues were wholly republican, with the inscriptions République français, Liberté, etc., and the symbols (cap of liberty, cock) that have survived in modern French coinage. The precious metals were in short supply; gold and silver were demonetized and paper took their place, together with copper. In 1793 the decimal system was adopted, in terms of francs, decimes, and centimes, coins now being dated by the Revolutionary (French Revolution) era; gold coinage was effectively lacking until the time of Napoleon. From 1866 France was joined with Belgium, Italy, and Switzerland in a monetary convention defining the denominations, quality, and weight of gold and silver coinage in terms of francs. In the 20th century alloys were introduced, and the Vichy (Vichy France) government of Henri-Philippe Pétain also used zinc, iron, and aluminum. From 1950 paper money was increasingly replaced by alloy coins, the “heavy” revalued franc being introduced in 1959.

The Bohemian (Bohemia) ducal coinage of deniers from the 10th to the 12th century showed Byzantine, Scandinavian, and even English influences; by the 12th century the Prague mint was developing its own style. Wenceslas II first produced the gros in 1300, and John of Luxembourg (1310–46) the first gold florins, with, obverse, crown and, reverse, rampant lion. The regal coinage of Hungary began with the deniers of Stephen I (St. Stephen; 1000–38), and the style remained crude until Charles I (1310–42) introduced a lily-bearing gold florin and a silver gros modeled on those of Naples and Rome.

The origin of Norwegian, Danish, and Swedish coinages is clearly the result of the Danish conquest of England. The Runic alphabet was employed, though not by any means exclusively, on many early coins of Denmark and Norway. The Norwegian series began with Haakon the Great (Haakon Sigurdsson) (c. 970–995), who copied the pennies of Ethelred II. In the second half of the 11th century, a coinage of small, thin pennies began, which developed into bracteates. Magnus VI (1263–80) restored the coinage, more or less imitating the English sterlings of the time.

The money of Denmark began with pennies of Sweyn I (c. 987–1014), also copied from the coinage of Ethelred II; the coins of Canute (Canute (I)) (Cnut) the Great (1016–35) and Hardecanute (Harthacnut; reign extended to England in 1040–42) were mainly English in character.

With Magnus I (Magnus I Olafsson) (reign extended to Denmark in 1042–47) other influences, especially Byzantine, appeared, and the latter was very strong under Sweyn II Estridsen (1047–74). Bracteates came in during the second half of the 12th century. The coinage is very difficult to classify until the time of Eric of Pomerania (1397). There were important episcopal coinages at Roskilde and Lund in the 12th and 13th centuries.

Sweden had very few early coins; Swedish coinage began with imitations by Olaf Skötkonung (995) of English pennies and included the usual bracteate coinage. The money was restored by Albert of Mecklenburg (1364–89). The thaler was introduced by Sten Sture (Sture, Sten, The Younger) the Younger (1512–20). The money of Gustav II Adolf (1611–32) is historically interesting. Under Charles XII (1697–1718) there was highly curious money of necessity (i.e., a coinage struck to fulfill a need, usually in time of war and siege, but with inadequate technical means available). The small copper daler was struck, sometimes plated; types included Roman divinities. During the 17th and 18th centuries there was a large issue of enormous plates of copper, stamped with their full value in silver money as a countermark.

Finland, as a Russian grand duchy from 1809, struck in gold, silver, and bronze until declaring independence in 1917; since then, its coins have shown the Finnish lion. Latvia coined as an independent state from 1918 to 1940 and again from 1992; Lithuanian independence, similarly until 1940 and again from 1992, was reflected in autonomous coinage.

English coinage proper began with the silver penny of Offa, king of Mercia (757–796). It was first struck at around the weight of the sceat, from about 790, and its weight increased to about 22 ¹/₂ grains (equal to 240 to the Tower pound; the standard pound used by the Royal Mint until its replacement in 1526 by the troy pound, whose name derives from the French city of Troyes, site of a major medieval fair). The new pennies showed Carolingian influence in their broad, flat forms. Their designs, however, insofar as they were not influenced by late Roman coin portraiture, displayed a brilliant originality (both in Anglo-Saxon portraiture and also in pattern design and decorative lettering), which had no equal for some centuries. Offa's coinage, though minted expressly for him as Rex Merciorum, was mainly current in the southeast and was probably struck at Canterbury. Evidence for this lies in the fact that the moneyers of Offa were also those of the kings of Kent, and the coins of archbishops of Canterbury, including Jaenbeorht (died 792), bore the names of Offa and his successor Cenwulf: under Ceolwulf (821–823) the mint name of Canterbury appeared on the coins. Offa struck pennies with the portrait and name of his wife, Cynethryth, as Regina M(erciorum) and also issued gold pieces copying a 774 dinar of the caliph al-Manṣūr but with the addition of OFFA REX. Ceremonial gold coins, like Offa's, all now represented by unique examples, were minted, perhaps partly to pay the Romescot (an annual tax to the papal see), by Archbishop Wigmund of York (837–854?), Edward the Elder (899–924), Ethelred II (978–1016), and Edward the Confessor (Edward) (1042–66).

Henry II ceased the regular change of types customary since William I's reign and struck one type until 1180. As a result the work of the English mints reached its lowest level. His short-cross penny, so called from its reverse design, first issued in 1180, remained unchanged—including the name Henricus—not only by Henry II but also by Richard and John and Henry III until 1247, when Henry III coined the long-cross penny with the arms of the cross extended to the edge of the coin to discourage clipping. He also reduced considerably the number of mints. Edward I subordinated all mints to the authority of the master worker in London, William de Turnemire. In 1279 he introduced a new type of penny, with, obverse, bust of the king and, reverse, long cross with three pellets in each angle, a type that was much imitated abroad and persisted on silver until Henry VII. The moneyers' names disappeared from the reverse legends, and their place was taken by the name of the mint (e.g., CIVITAS LONDON). Edward I also struck halfpennies and farthings to replace the cut pennies that had hitherto done duty for small change. He also introduced a groat, or fourpenny piece, but this larger coin did not establish itself until Edward III's reign. The coins of Edward I, II, and III can be distinguished only by a minute study of detail. Privileged ecclesiastical mints still continued active.

Elizabeth I continued her father's denominations and restored the purity of the silver coinage. She soon discontinued the groat, Edward VI having introduced the silver sixpence and threepence, although she continued its half, the twopence. Her “portcullis,” or trade coinage for use by the newly incorporated East India Company, appeared in 1600–01. She also experimented with machinery for coinage, although the insistence of the moneyers on their immemorial right to use manual methods delayed its establishment until after the Restoration. James I introduced a number of new gold coins, the most important being the “unite,” or sovereign (20 shillings), so called from its legend (Faciam eos in gentem unam 【“I will make them into one race”】) alluding to the union of the crowns of Scotland and England. Charles I made no changes in the coinage until the Civil War (when Parliament coined in London and the King's mint traveled with him); the King's financial difficulties added many new coins to the English series. These included 20-shilling and 10-shilling pieces in silver, the large gold £3 pieces of Oxford, and the fine Oxford silver crown, with a view of Oxford below the usual type of the king on horseback, made by the engraver Thomas Rawlins, employed at the Oxford Mint (1642–46) under its master, Thomas Bushell; the siege pieces rudely struck on silver plate at various Royalist strongholds show to what straits the King's party was reduced. Under James I and Charles I are found the first English copper coins, the “Harrington” farthings, which were struck under contract. From 1649, copper tokens, mainly of farthing value, were produced in large numbers by many municipalities and private traders. The coinage of the Commonwealth (1649–60) is remarkable for the simplicity of its types, and this is the only period of English coinage when the legends have been in English. Coins struck with the lord protector Cromwell (Cromwell, Oliver)'s bust and superscription, although not uncommon, apart from the 1656 half crowns, seem never to have circulated.

Wales has had no coinage, except perhaps for the penny of the chieftain Howel Dda (909–950).

Coinage began by following English usage in regard to types and weights: the earliest silver pennies were those of David I (1124–53) and copied Stephen's, though the use of profile portraits in the 13th and 14th centuries showed an interesting divergence. Gold nobles and silver groats were issued by David II in 1356–57 on the standard of Edward III. From Robert III onward the French or Flemish standard for gold was preferred, and during the 16th century, especially under James V and Mary, a strong continental influence on design was apparent in a series of gold coins of originality and frequent beauty. Silver coins had begun to show debasement of metal, and as early as James III copper small change—“black” farthings—had been introduced. The Scottish coinage of James VI ( James I of England) marked a peak in range and variety: after the union of the crowns in 1603, Scots coinage decreased in quantity and ceased in 1707 after the union of the Scottish and English parliaments. Hitherto the value of Scottish coinage in relation to English had been 12:1. Under George VI a shilling with a Scottish reverse was first coined as part of the general British series.

Irish currency from the 8th to the 10th century consisted mainly of Anglo-Saxon, French, Viking, and Arabic silver; in the later 10th and 11th centuries silver pennies of the Norse kings of Dublin imitated Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian models. There were also thin silver bracteates copying Norman types. Anglo-Irish coinage proper began with silver pennies and halfpence of John (the only coins to bear his name, which did not appear on English coins). Dublin, Waterford, Cork, Limerick, and Trim were striking silver (increasingly base) from groat to farthing from the 13th to the 15th century. The “three crowns” coinage with the saltire cross (the Fitzgerald arms) beside the shield came in with Edward IV and was continued by Richard III and Henry VII. “Harp” groats were struck at Dublin under Henry VIII, followed by his much baser issues. Gold was never coined, but copper was introduced quite early. In Ireland as in England, the English Civil Wars produced a number of siege pieces, notably the money of the Irish peers Inchiquin and Ormonde. For his Irish campaign James II issued his “gun-money” series of brass (made partly from melted-down old cannon), to be redeemed in silver when he should regain the throne.

In 1723 there was uproar in Ireland over the monopoly granted to the English entrepreneur William Wood to mint a debased Irish coinage, derisorily termed “Wood's halfpence.” Under pressure from, among others, Jonathan Swift (Swift, Jonathan), the satirist, whose “Drapier's Letters” furiously attacked him, Wood revoked his patent in 1725 (see below Coins of the United States (coin)). Irish coinage was discontinued in 1822; from then on, Irish needs were served by British coinage. In 1928 the coinage of the Irish Free State (later the republic of Ireland) was introduced, with, obverse, harp on all denominations, and reverses bearing a range of animal, bird, and fish designs. In February 1971 the coinage of the republic was decimalized.

Jersey and Guernsey have had their own bronze coinage for well over a century, showing the shield of three leopards proper to the Duchy of Normandy. Variation of types has occurred since World War II, the end of which prompted also the special issue of the Jersey “liberation penny” to mark the end of the German occupation. The coinage was decimalized in February 1971.

Congressional efforts to establish a national mint had resulted in the issue of the historic 1783 Nova Constellatio silver patterns of 1,000, 500, and 100 units, from dies by the Englishman Benjamin Dudley, exemplifying the extraordinary Morris Plan, drawn up by Robert Morris, superintendent of finance, which reconciled the diverse colonial moneys of account. In 1786, however, Congress adopted instead the proposals of Thomas Jefferson (Jefferson, Thomas) for a decimal monetary system based on the dollar, and in 1792 the mint was finally built in Philadelphia, with David Rittenhouse (Rittenhouse, David) as director. Jefferson tried vainly to hire as die engraver a Swiss, Jean Pierre Droz, who nevertheless furnished dies, hubs, and presses. Before the mint was quite ready, the first official American silver coin, the half dime, was struck in October 1792 in John Harper's cellar a short distance away, from dies by Robert Birch and Joseph Wright, who were also responsible for the regular cents and half cents of 1793. Silver followed in 1794 and gold in 1795, the engraver being Robert Scot.

Later designers of American coins included Gilbert Stuart (Stuart, Gilbert) (1796 silver), Titian Peale and Thomas Sully (Sully, Thomas) (the 1836 dollars engraved by Christian Gobrecht), Augustus Saint-Gaudens (Saint-Gaudens, Augustus) (1907–33 10- and 20-dollar gold pieces, called eagles and double eagles), Bela Lyon Pratt (1908–29 half eagles and quarter eagles), Victor Brenner (the Lincoln cent), James Earle Fraser (the buffalo nickel), A.A. Weinman and Hermon MacNeil (1916 silver), John Flannagan (Flannagan, John Bernard) (1932 quarter dollar), Laura G. Fraser, and Chester Beach and Gutzon Borglum (Borglum, Gutzon) (various commemorative coins).

The discovery of gold and silver in various regions and the difficulty of transporting large quantities of bullion through country menaced by Indians and bandits prompted the founding of both private and federal local mints. The Bechtlers of Rutherfordton, N.C., coined locally mined gold long before the government built a mint in Charlotte. The California gold rush stimulated coining by many bankers and assayers. Private coinage was legal so long as the coins contained full bullion weight and purity and imitated no official issues; Bechtler and Moffat gold (the latter coined at San Francisco) circulated at about par until the Civil War, while lightweight private gold took a discount. The California private mints mostly ceased operations when the San Francisco federal branch started, but those in the less accessible regions of Colorado continued long afterward, and as late as 1901 Joseph Lesher struck octagonal silver dollars in that state.

The conquering Muslims at first mimicked the coinage of their predecessors. In the western provinces they issued gold and copper pieces imitated from contemporary Byzantine coins, modifying the cross on the reverse of the latter somewhat to suit Muslim sensibilities. In the eastern provinces the Arab governors issued silver dirhams that were copies of late Sāsānian coins (mostly of those of Khosrow II; with the addition of short Arabic inscriptions on the margin and often the name of the Arab governor in Pahlavi; even the crude representation of the fire altar was retained. Toward the end of the 7th century, the fifth Umayyad caliph, Abd al-Malikʿ, instituted a coinage more in keeping with the principles of Islam. This “reformed coinage” was of gold (first issued in AD 698–699), silver (first issued in 696–697), and copper. The old coin, called dinar (from the Aramaic derivation of the Roman denarius aureus), derived its standard (4.25 grams) from the Byzantine solidus; the standard of the silver coin (dirham, from the name of the Sāsānian coin, which in its turn was derived from Greek drachma) was reduced to 2.92 grams, but it retained in its thin material and style some features of its Sāsānian predecessor; the name of the copper change, fals, comes from the Latin word follis (“money bag,” by derivation a copper coin of low value). The reformed gold and silver coinage has no pictorial type, only skillfully arranged inscriptions, which are nonetheless of high historical value.

After the Han period (206 BC–AD 220), the standard coin underwent many modifications. The coin was issued in iron and lead, in six-grain and four-grain weights, and in token versions. Yet the ideal of the five-grain coin of Han survived until the rise of the T'ang dynasty (Tang dynasty), when the emperor Kao-tsu in 621 issued the Kai-yuan coin, which gave the coinage of all the Far East its form until the end of the 19th century—a round coin with a square hole and a four-character legend stating the function (tong-bao, which means “circulating treasure”) and date of the coin. The Southern Sung dynasty (Song dynasty) (1127–1279) dated their coins on the reverse with regnal years, and the T'ang and Ming dynasties (618–907 and 1368–1644, respectively) put the mint name on the reverse, as did the Ch'ing dynasty (Qing dynasty) (1644–1911/12), this last giving it in Manchu characters. Paper money has been in use in China since the 9th century and was current almost to the exclusion of regular coins under certain Mongol emperors, such as Kublai Khan, whose paper money is described by Marco Polo. For more than 2,000 years the copper cash was the only official coinage of China; gold and silver were current by weight only, the latter in the form of ingots. As a result of the popularity of imported Spanish colonial and Mexican dollars, several attempts were made to institute a silver coinage based on the dollar in the 19th century; not until the very end of the 19th century were mints established to strike silver and copper coins of European style. Under the republic, coins were at once struck with the portraits of Sun Yat-sen and Pres. Yüan Shih-k'ai, and the various generals who fought for control of China issued their own coins. The currency of both the People's Republic of China and Taiwan is the yuan (dollar). The very extensive series of talismans (amulet), coinlike in shape but usually larger and in their legends and types reflecting popular Chinese religious thought, is noteworthy.

Percy Gardner, A History of Ancient Coinage, 700–300 BC (1919, reprinted 1974), is an exhaustive study of the development of early measures of value, the origin of coin standards, and the mutual relationship of precious metals. The general history of coins and coinage is given in George Macdonald, The Evolution of Coinage (1916, reprinted 1980); Thomas W. Becker, The Coin Makers, rev. ed. (1970); Lionel Casson and Martin Price (eds.), Coins, Culture, and History in the Ancient World (1981); Sir John Craig, The Mint: A History of the London Mint from AD 287 to 1948 (1953); R.A.G. Carson, Coins Ancient, Mediaeval & Modern, 2nd ed. (1970; U.S. title, Coins of the World); Martin Price and Bluma L. Trell, Coins and Their Cities: Architecture on the Ancient Coins of Greece, Rome, and Palestine (1977); Martin Price (general ed.), Coins: An Illustrated Survey, 650 BC to the Present Day (1980); and Gerald Hoberman, The Art of Coins and Their Photography (1982).Topical treatments can be found in J.G. Milne, Greek Coinage (1931); Colin M. Kraay, Archaic and Classical Greek Coins (1976); Barclay V. Head, Historia Numorum: A Manual of Greek Numismatics, new ed. (1911, reprinted 1983); P.D. Whitting, Byzantine Coins (1973); Philip Grierson, Byzantine Coins (1982); C.H.V. Sutherland, Roman Coins (1974); Harold Mattingly, Roman Coins from the Earliest Times to the Fall of the Western Empire, 2nd ed. (1960, reprinted 1977); Arthur Engel and Raymond Serrure, Traité de numismatique du moyen âge, 3 vol. (1891–1905, reprinted 1977); and George C. Brooke, English Coins from the Seventh Century to the Present Day, 3rd rev. ed. (1950, reprinted 1976).Most of the above-mentioned works include bibliographies. For a separate bibliographic treatment, see Philip Grierson, Coins and Medals: A Select Bibliography (1954). Technology of minting is explored in George F. Hill, Ancient Methods of Coining (1977), a work that was originally a pioneering article in a 1924 issue of the Numismatic Chronicle of the Royal Numismatic Society; Cornelius C. Vermeule, Some Notes on Ancient Dies and Coining Methods (1954), a description of surviving ancient dies and other evidence relating to minting; and D. Sellwood, “Minting,” in Roman Crafts, ed. by Donald Strong and David Brown (1976).Illustrations of copies of early machinery can be found in Ludwig Veit, Das Liebe Geld: Zwei Jahrtausende Geld- und Münzgeschichte (1969). F. Mazerolle, Les Medailleurs Français du XV^e siècle au milieu du XVII^e, 3 vol. (1902–04), discusses documents relating to the introduction of machinery to French mints. A general overview of minting with emphasis on modern technology is presented in Denis R. Cooper, Coins and Minting (1983).Carol Humphrey Vivian Sutherland