This gold-colored dollar featuring a portrait of Thomas Jefferson entered circulation in September 2007. This type of coin is often purchased by collectors and is often undetected by the general public. However, dating back thousands of years, new coinage has been a vital part of political and historical transformations. (Image: United States Mint)
In storage in Washington, D.C., there are more than 1,400,000,000 $1 coins bearing the likenesses of U.S. presidents from George Washington to James Garfield. Few are even aware of their existence.
The coins are part of a series begun in 2007 by the United States Mint. The initiative was terminated in 2011 due to a lack of apparent enthusiasm. Other presidents have been featured on collector coins, but the majority of them have not been circulated.
Even though it costs the government more money, Americans are connected to their paper currencies and prefer to use them instead.
Tom Figueira, a professor of Classics at Rutgers University in New Jersey, remarked that the social and political turmoil produced by the introduction of the first coins over 2,500 years ago is incomparable to the current situation.
Figueira stated that the introduction of coins caused substantial mental shifts. It was an entirely new method of considering worth.
The first coins
The first coins appeared approximately 600 B.C., jingling in the wallets of Lydians, a kingdom connected to ancient Greece and located in what is now Turkey. They were composed of electrum, a gold-silver alloy, and featured a stylized lion's head.
The concept of money has been around for a while. In ancient China, shells were used as currency, and some 5,000 years ago, Mesopotamians created a banking system where people could "deposit" crops, animals, and other commodities for storage or exchange.
Figueira notes that the social implications of having a currency did not begin to take root until coins were introduced. The motivation for minting the first coins, in his opinion, was the need to maintain order in a society that had become increasingly complex.
"Coins made it possible for city-states to structure their procedures in an elegant and equitable manner," Figueira told LiveScience. "They gave the impression that matters such as military subsidies are transparent and conducted in an orderly fashion.
Greek labs1
A few decades later, as the Lydian experiment appeared to be succeeding, gleaming new coins began to proliferate throughout the Mediterranean.
Figueira stated, "It's quite obvious that it worked, and Greek city-states were a laboratory for all sorts of social experiments like this."
By the sixth century B.C., Athens, Aegina, Corinth, and Persia had all designed their own coins, facilitating the expansion of trade networks. Gold and silver replaced electrum as the preferred material, with coin values reflecting the actual value of the metal rather than an arbitrary amount, as is the case with contemporary currencies. Later Roman and Celtic coins followed the same traditions.
Everywhere coins appeared, they allowed individuals without social mobility to advance. Figueira stated that individuals might roam around with more than simply the clothing on their backs.
According to Figueira, there were some early kinks to iron out, most of which had to do with the sheer variety of coins in Europe. The majority of cities have emblems that reflected their local pride.
"The photographs were a means of expressing societal cohesion," he explained, "letting others know who we are and who our heroes are." The Romans honored their emperors, while the Celts adorned their currency with runes, animals, and notable rulers.
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