Ionia - 1/24 Stater

Notes: Ionia, Uncertain Mint, 6th century BC EL 1/24th Stater. Obverse Ram / Reverse incuse punch.

Period: Archaic Coins. Can you imagine living in a society without money? While it might be a cool verse for a certain John Lennon song, it?s hard to imagine an advanced modern society being able to function without the existence of the concept of money. This section of Trove Star will focus on the evolution of one of human civilizations most important inventions, the invention of money.

While there is debate among scholars about where and when the first coins invented, it is generally agreed that the earliest known coins evolved as independently in three separate world locations, Asia Minor, China and India around 650-600 BC. This section will show coins from all three of these geographic regions and invite anyone in the collecting community to submit photos and descriptions of any coins they have of coins from the same time frame.

Culture: The emergence of coinage in the Western World begins with a mysterious coinage series composed of electrum (a mixture of both gold and silver) with an animal or geometric image on the obverse and a simple incuse punch on the reverse. The earliest coins that are able to be identified by a specific state are electrum fractions from the ancient Kingdom of Lydia, and several early Greek Colonies on the coast of a region called Ionia. Both of these geographic regions minted these unique electrum coins around 650-600 BC.

The last King of Lydia, King Croesus took this Lydian invention, and enhanced it by refining the Kingdom’s electrum coins into a separate pure silver and pure gold coin series, creating the world first bimetal system of money. Around 547 BC, the Kingdom of Lydia was conquered by the world’s first superpower, the Persian Empire. It was via the Persian Empire that the invention of coinage would eventually spread to Europe and throughout Asia via the Persian vast multicultural empire that spanned three continents.