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English Coins and Tokens, with a Chapter on Greek and Roman Coins cover

English Coins and Tokens, with a Chapter on Greek and Roman Coins

Chapter 132: § THE SCIENCE OF NUMISMATICS.
By Llewellynn Frederick William Jewitt
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About This Book

A survey of British numismatics outlines the emergence, typology, and historical progression of coinage from Celtic imitations of Mediterranean and Gallic models to later medieval and modern issues. The author uses archaeological finds and stylistic comparison to argue for native coin production beginning around 150–200 BCE, distinguishes uninscribed and inscribed series, and traces how repeated die copying produced progressive degeneration of designs. A dedicated chapter situates British types within Greek and Roman standards and technical practice. Later sections catalogue denominations, show typical obverse and reverse types, and set out criteria used to attribute coins to particular periods and rulers.

GREEK AND ROMAN COINS.
BY
BARCLAY V. HEAD.

GREEK AND ROMAN COINS.

§ THE SCIENCE OF NUMISMATICS.

The science of Numismatics (from the Greek word νὁμυὁμα, a legally current coin) embraces the study of the coins of all the nations of the earth who have at any period impressed upon pieces of metal—gold, silver, bronze, brass, copper, iron, tin, lead, etc. etc.—any devices (types), or inscriptions, indicating that such pieces of metal were issued by authority for public use as money.

Strictly speaking, the term Numismatics should not therefore be applied to the study of medallions, medals, or counters, whether commemorative, purely artistic, military, scholastic, etc., unless, as is sometimes the case, such medals have been at the same time current as money.

The study of medals is, however, in many respects so nearly allied to Numismatics that it may be and frequently is included in it for convenience sake.

For practical purposes coins may be roughly classified under four principal headings:—

I. Ancient, including { Greek, etc.
{ Roman, etc.
{ Phœnician, etc.
II. Byzantine.
III. Mediæval  "   { European various.
{ Oriental various.
IV. Modern "     All countries.

Each series may be again subdivided into an enormous number of classes, as will be seen when we come to examine the Greek and Roman series to which the following pages will be devoted.

In the outset a few brief remarks on the uses of a cabinet of antique coins may not be out of place. Of these the first and foremost is the undoubted fact that these “strange face to face vestiges of vanished æons” (to use an expression of Carlyle’s) bring our minds into immediate contact with the life and history of antiquity as no mere book-study can ever do. Not that we would depreciate the value of a knowledge of history; on the contrary, this is the one study which is all important for a collector of coins. Without it a man may indeed become familiar with the look of ancient coins, and he may gain much practical knowledge of the prices which they usually fetch at sales, but he will never be a true Numismatist. If he possess the artistic sense he may admire them as works of art, but beyond this they will be to him as a sealed book.