Numismatics is the study or collection of
currency
A currency, "in circulation", from la, currens, -entis, literally meaning "running" or "traversing" is a standardization of money in any form, in use or circulation as a medium of exchange, for example banknotes and coins.
A more general ...
, including coins, tokens, paper money, medals and related objects.
Specialists, known as
numismatists, are often characterized as students or collectors of
coins
A coin is a small, flat (usually depending on the country or value), round piece of metal or plastic used primarily as a medium of exchange or legal tender. They are standardized in weight, and produced in large quantities at a mint in order to ...
, but the discipline also includes the broader study of
money
Money is any item or verifiable record that is generally accepted as payment for goods and services and repayment of debts, such as taxes, in a particular country or socio-economic context. The primary functions which distinguish money ar ...
and other means of
payment used to resolve
debt
Debt is an obligation that requires one party, the debtor, to pay money or other agreed-upon value to another party, the creditor. Debt is a deferred payment, or series of payments, which differentiates it from an immediate purchase. The d ...
s and exchange
goods
In economics, goods are items that satisfy human wants
and provide utility, for example, to a consumer making a purchase of a satisfying product. A common distinction is made between goods which are transferable, and services, which are not ...
.
The earliest forms of money used by people are categorised by collectors as "Odd and Curious", but the use of other goods in barter exchange is excluded, even where used as a circulating
currency
A currency, "in circulation", from la, currens, -entis, literally meaning "running" or "traversing" is a standardization of money in any form, in use or circulation as a medium of exchange, for example banknotes and coins.
A more general ...
(e.g.,
cigarettes or
instant noodles in prison). As an example, the
Kyrgyz people
The Kyrgyz people (also spelled Kyrghyz, Kirgiz, and Kirghiz; ) are a Turkic ethnic group native to Central Asia. Kyrgyzstan is the nation state of the Kyrgyz people and significant diaspora can be found in China, Russia, and Uzbekistan ...
used
horse
The horse (''Equus ferus caballus'') is a domesticated, one-toed, hoofed mammal. It belongs to the taxonomic family Equidae and is one of two extant subspecies of ''Equus ferus''. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million ...
s as the principal currency unit, and gave small change in
lambskins;
the lambskins may be suitable for numismatic study, but the horses are not. Many objects have been used for centuries, such as
cowry shells,
precious metal
Precious metals are rare, naturally occurring metallic chemical elements of high economic value.
Chemically, the precious metals tend to be less reactive than most elements (see noble metal). They are usually ductile and have a high lu ...
s,
cocoa beans,
large stones, and
gems.
Etymology
First attested in English 1829, the word ''numismatics'' comes from the adjective ''numismatic'', meaning "of coins". It was borrowed in 1792 from
French
French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents
** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
''numismatiques'', itself a derivation from
Late Latin
Late Latin ( la, Latinitas serior) is the scholarly name for the form of Literary Latin of late antiquity.Roberts (1996), p. 537. English dictionary definitions of Late Latin date this period from the , and continuing into the 7th century in the ...
''numismatis'', genitive of ''numisma'', a variant of ''nomisma'' meaning "coin". Nomisma is a
latinisation of the
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
νόμισμα (''nomisma'') which means "current coin/custom", which derives from
νομίζειν (''nomizein''), "to hold or own as a custom or usage, to use customarily", in turn from
νόμος (''nomos''), "usage, custom", ultimately from
νέμειν (''nemein''), "to dispense, divide, assign, keep, hold".
History of money
Throughout its history, money itself has been made to be a
scarce
In economics, scarcity "refers to the basic fact of life that there exists only a finite amount of human and nonhuman resources which the best technical knowledge is capable of using to produce only limited maximum amounts of each economic good ...
good, although it does not have to be. Many materials have been used to form money, from naturally scarce
precious metal
Precious metals are rare, naturally occurring metallic chemical elements of high economic value.
Chemically, the precious metals tend to be less reactive than most elements (see noble metal). They are usually ductile and have a high lu ...
s and
cowry shells through
cigarettes to entirely artificial money, called
fiat money
Fiat money (from la, fiat, "let it be done") is a type of currency that is not backed by any commodity such as gold or silver. It is typically designated by the issuing government to be legal tender. Throughout history, fiat money was sometim ...
, such as
banknote
A banknote—also called a bill (North American English), paper money, or simply a note—is a type of negotiable instrument, negotiable promissory note, made by a bank or other licensed authority, payable to the bearer on demand.
Banknotes w ...
s. Many complementary currencies use time as a unit of measure, using mutual credit accounting that keeps the balance of money intact.
Modern money (and most ancient money too) is essentially a token – an abstraction. Paper currency is perhaps the most common type of physical money today. However, goods such as
gold
Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile ...
or
silver
Silver is a chemical element with the Symbol (chemistry), symbol Ag (from the Latin ', derived from the Proto-Indo-European wikt:Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/h₂erǵ-, ''h₂erǵ'': "shiny" or "white") and atomic number 47. A soft, whi ...
retain many of the essential properties of money, such as
volatility and limited supply. However, these goods are not controlled by one single authority.
History of numismatics
Coin collecting
Coin collecting is the collecting of coins or other forms of minted legal tender.
Coins of interest to collectors often include those that were in circulation for only a brief time, coins with mint errors, and especially beautiful or hist ...
may have possibly existed in ancient times.
Caesar Augustus
Caesar Augustus (born Gaius Octavius; 23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14), also known as Octavian, was the first Roman emperor; he reigned from 27 BC until his death in AD 14. He is known for being the founder of the Roman Pr ...
gave "coins of every device, including old pieces of the kings and foreign money" as
Saturnalia
Saturnalia is an ancient Roman festival and holiday in honour of the god Saturn, held on 17 December of the Julian calendar and later expanded with festivities through to 23 December. The holiday was celebrated with a sacrifice at the Temple o ...
gifts.
Petrarch
Francesco Petrarca (; 20 July 1304 – 18/19 July 1374), commonly anglicized as Petrarch (), was a scholar and poet of early Renaissance Italy, and one of the earliest humanists.
Petrarch's rediscovery of Cicero's letters is often credite ...
, who wrote in a letter that he was often approached by vinediggers with old coins asking him to buy or to identify the ruler, is credited as the first
Renaissance
The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass id ...
collector. Petrarch presented a collection of Roman coins to
Emperor Charles IV in 1355.
The first book on coins was ''De Asse et Partibus'' (1514) by
Guillaume Budé. During the early Renaissance ancient coins were collected by European royalty and nobility. Collectors of coins were Pope
Boniface VIII, Emperor Maximilian of the Holy Roman Empire,
Louis XIV
, house = Bourbon
, father = Louis XIII
, mother = Anne of Austria
, birth_date =
, birth_place = Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France
, death_date =
, death_place = Palace of Ve ...
of France, Ferdinand I, Elector
Joachim II Joachim II may refer to:
* Joachim II Hector, Elector of Brandenburg (1505–1571)
* Patriarch Joachim II of Constantinople
Joachim II (1802 – 5 August 1878) was Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople
The ecumenical patriarch ( el, Ο ...
of Brandenburg who started the Berlin coin cabinet and
Henry IV of France
Henry IV (french: Henri IV; 13 December 1553 – 14 May 1610), also known by the epithets Good King Henry or Henry the Great, was King of Navarre (as Henry III) from 1572 and King of France from 1589 to 1610. He was the first monarc ...
to name a few. Numismatics is called the "Hobby of Kings", due to its most esteemed founders.
Professional societies organised in the 19th century. The
Royal Numismatic Society was founded in 1836 and immediately began publishing the journal that became the ''Numismatic Chronicle''. The
American Numismatic Society was founded in 1858 and began publishing the ''American Journal of Numismatics'' in 1866.
In 1931 the
British Academy
The British Academy is the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and the social sciences.
It was established in 1902 and received its royal charter in the same year. It is now a fellowship of more than 1,000 leading scholars span ...
launched the
Sylloge Nummorum Graecorum Sylloge Nummorum Graecorum (SNG) is a project to publish ancient Greek coinage, founded in Great Britain by the British Academy in 1930. It was originally intended to catalogue both public and private Greek coin collections in the UK. It has gradua ...
publishing collections of
Ancient Greek coinage. The first volume of
Sylloge of Coins of the British Isles
The Sylloge of the Coins of the British Isles (SCBI) is an ongoing project to publish all major museum collections and certain important private collections of British coins. Catalogues in the series contain full details and illustrations of eac ...
was published in 1958.
In the 20th century coins gained recognition as archaeological objects, scholars such as
Guido Bruck of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna realized their value in providing a temporal context and the difficulty that curators faced when identifying worn coins using classical literature. After
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
in Germany a project, ''
Fundmünzen der Antike'' (Coin finds of the Classical Period) was launched, to register every coin found within Germany. This idea found successors in many countries.
In the United States, the US mint established a coin cabinet in 1838 when chief coiner
Adam Eckfeldt donated his personal collection. William E. Du Bois' ''Pledges of History...'' (1846) describes the cabinet.
C. Wyllys Betts' ''American colonial history illustrated by contemporary medals'' (1894) set the groundwork for the study of American historical medals.
Helen Wang's "A short history of Chinese numismatics in European languages" (2012-2013) gives an outline history of Western countries' understanding of Chinese numismatics.
Lyce Jankowski's ''Les amis des monnaies'' is an in-depth study of Chinese numismatics in China in the 19th century.
Modern numismatics
Modern numismatics is the study of the coins of the mid-17th century onward, the period of machine-struck coins. Their study serves more the need of collectors than historians and it is more often successfully pursued by amateur aficionados than by professional scholars. The focus of modern numismatics lies frequently in the research of production and use of money in historical contexts using mint or other records in order to determine the relative rarity of the coins they study. Varieties,
mint-made errors, the results of progressive die wear, mintage figures and even the sociopolitical context of coin mintings are also matters of interest.
Subfields
Exonumia (UK English: Paranumismatica) is the study of
coin
A coin is a small, flat (usually depending on the country or value), round piece of metal or plastic used primarily as a medium of exchange or legal tender. They are standardized in weight, and produced in large quantities at a mint in orde ...
-like objects such as
token coins and
medal
A medal or medallion is a small portable artistic object, a thin disc, normally of metal, carrying a design, usually on both sides. They typically have a commemorative purpose of some kind, and many are presented as awards. They may be int ...
s, and other items used in place of legal currency or for commemoration. This includes
elongated coins, encased coins, souvenir medallions, tags, badges, counterstamped coins,
wooden nickels,
credit card
A credit card is a payment card issued to users (cardholders) to enable the cardholder to pay a merchant for goods and services based on the cardholder's accrued debt (i.e., promise to the card issuer to pay them for the amounts plus the o ...
s, and other similar items. It is related to numismatics proper (concerned with coins which have been
legal tender), and many
coin collectors are also exonumists.
Notaphily is the study of
paper money or banknotes.
It is believed that people have been collecting
paper money for as long as it has been in use. However, people only started collecting paper money systematically in Germany in the 1920s, particularly the ''Serienscheine'' (Series notes)
Notgeld. The turning point occurred in the 1970s, when notaphily was established as a separate area by collectors.
At the same time, some developed countries such as the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...
,
Germany
Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG),, is a country in Central Europe. It is the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany lies between the Baltic and North Sea to the north and the Alps to the sou ...
and
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan ar ...
began publishing their respective national catalogues of paper money, which represented major points of reference literature.
Scripophily
Scripophily is the study and collection of stock and bond certificates. A specialized field of numismatics, scripophily is an area of collecting due to both the inherent beauty of some historical documents as well as the interesting historical co ...
is the study and collection of
stock
In finance, stock (also capital stock) consists of all the shares by which ownership of a corporation or company is divided.Longman Business English Dictionary: "stock - ''especially AmE'' one of the shares into which ownership of a company ...
s and
Bonds. It is an area of collecting due to both the inherent beauty of some historical documents as well as the interesting historical context of each document. Some stock certificates are excellent examples of
engraving
Engraving is the practice of incising a design onto a hard, usually flat surface by cutting grooves into it with a burin. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or glass are engraved, or may provide an i ...
. Occasionally, an old stock document will be found that still has value as a stock in a successor company.
The example of one of Alexander the Great's coin
The example of the silver tetradrachm found in Byblos (ca 330-300 bc.) is indicative of Macedonian influence. Alexander's coin (To nomisma Alexandrou) is of the type of the head of beardless Heracles, with an aquiline nose on the right, represented with a headdress of lion's head and of an aetophore Zeus (holding an eagle) on the reverse, enthroned with a scepter in his left hand. The type of this tetradrachm has a very assertive Macedonian and Greek character. The choice of representations is symbolic : the reminder of his divine lineage and his heroic character. The representation of the Olympian god and the Greek hero also makes it possible to spread the Greco-Macedonian culture and in particular religious cults. The silver minting inaugurated by Alexander in -333 showed representations which, while privileging the Greco-Macedonian aspect of the divinites, did not appear to the Orientals as totally foreign (assimilated to the Baals deities).
[G. LE RIDER, Alexandre le Grand : Monnaie, finances et politique, Chapter V, ”Histoire” , PUF, 2003, p153-214 ]
See also
*
Awards for numismatics
This list of numismatics awards is an index to articles about notable awards given for significant contributions to the field of numismatics.
Adna G. Wilde Jr. Memorial for Exemplary Service
Administered by the American Numismatic Association—n ...
*
Glossary of numismatics
This glossary of numismatics is a list of definitions of terms and concepts relevant to numismatics and coin collecting, as well as sub-fields and related disciplines, with concise explanations for the beginner or professional.
Numismatics ( ...
*
Numismatic associations
*
List of numismatic collections
*
List of numismatic journals
*
List of numismatists
Further reading
* Pritsak, O. (1998). ''The Origins of the Old Rus’ Weights and Monetary Systems: Two Studies in Western Eurasian Metrology and Numismatics in the Seventh to Eleventh Centuries'' (Harvard Series In Ukrainian Studies). Cambridge: Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute.
References
External links
*
*
{{Authority control
Currency