There has always been a fondness in my heart for coins.  There is no doubt that there is something curious about coin collecting throughout the ages.  Not only are coins interesting as coins for their “face monetary value” but also for their precious metal value AND their historical value, rarety, condition etc. 

This is one of the things that made Numis and the Numis Network interesting to me is that humans  have always loved coins and probably always will.  Coins are history and beg the observer to think abut the history each coin depicts.

It is documented that coin collecting existed in ancient times.   For example, Caesar Augustus  gave  ”coins of every device, including old pieces of the kings and foreign money” as gifts.

Also during the Renaissance period Petrarch, was known to identify and buy coins found by vineyard workers.   In fact Petrarch presented a collection of Roman coins to Emperor Charles IV  in 1355.

During the early Renaissance ancient coins were collected by European royalty and nobility. The first book on coins was De Asse et Partibus (1514) by Guillaume Budé.

Other famous collectors of coins were Pope Boniface VIII, Emperor Maximilian of the Holy Roman Empire, Louis XIV of France, Ferdinand I, Elector Joachim II of Brandenburg who started the Berlin coin cabinet and Henry IV of France to name a few.

Numismatics is called the “Hobby of Kings”, due to its most esteemed founders.

Modern numismatics is the study of the coins of the mid 17th to the 21st century, 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 socio-political context of coin minting are also matters of interest.

This is just another reason why Numis and the Numis Network was appealing to me.

To learn more check out this video on modern wealth building from collecting silver coins.

Numismatics;  Coin Collecting;  the Hobby of Kings