Table of Contents

Introduction
Coins as historical data
Origins of coins
Ancient Greek coins
- Early developments, c. 650–490 bc
- From the Persian Wars to Alexander the Great, 490–336 bc
  - Predominance of Athens
  - Artistic development
- From Alexander the Great to the end of the Roman Republic, c. 336–31 bc
  - The coin portrait
  - Rise of Rome
- Subsidiary Greek silver coinages under the Roman Empire
- Coinage in Judaea
- Greek bronze imperial coinage, to ad 268
Roman coins, republic and empire
- The beginnings
- Introduction of the denarius
- Control and content of the coinage
- Caesar and after
  - Early imperial mint policy
  - Portraits and types
- The 4th century and after
Coinage in western continental Europe, Africa, and the Byzantine Empire
- Post-Roman coinage in the West
- Coinage in the Byzantine Empire
  - Types and legends of Byzantine coins
  - Economic role of Byzantine coins
- Charlemagne and the Carolingian coinages
The later medieval and modern coinages of continental Europe
- Portugal
- Spain
- France
- The Low Countries
- Switzerland
- Italy and Sicily
- Germany and central Europe
- Scandinavia
- Poland
- Russia and the Balkans
- The later Byzantine empires
Coins of the British Isles, colonies, and Commonwealth
- Ancient Britain
- Roman Britain
- Early Anglo-Saxon coins
- Anglo-Saxon penny coinages
- Post-Conquest coinage
- Gold coinage
- Modern coinage
- Scotland
- Ireland
- Isle of Man and Channel Islands
- Colonies and Commonwealth
Coins of Latin America
- The colonial period
- Hispanic-American colonial mints
- Dissemination of Hispanic-American coinage
- Emergency coinages in the era of independence
- The independent countries
- Brazil
Coins of the United States
Coins of Asia
- Ancient Persia
  - Achaemenids
  - Parthians
  - Sāsānians
- Islamic coins of the West and of western Asia and Central Asia
  - Ottoman Empire
  - Later Persia, Afghanistan, and Turkistan
- India
  - Islamic
  - Miscellaneous
- China
- Japan
- Korea
- Vietnam, Kampuchea (Cambodia), Laos
- Burma and Thailand
Coins of Africa
- North Africa
- Sub-Saharan Africa
Techniques of production
- Ancient minting
- Medieval minting
- Early modern minting
- Contemporary mints

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Written by David Grenville John Sellwood, Carol Humphrey Vivian Sutherland, Walter Henry BreenSee All

Fact-checked by The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Last Updated: Apr 12, 2023 • Article History

Herodian coin

Key People:: Benvenuto Cellini Augustus Saint-Gaudens Sir Thomas Gresham Nicholas Oresme

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coin, a piece of metal or, rarely, some other material (such as leather or porcelain) certified by a mark or marks upon it as being of a specific intrinsic or exchange value. The use of cast-metal pieces as a medium of exchange is very ancient and probably developed out of the use in commerce of ordinary ingots of bronze and other metals that possessed an intrinsic value. Until the development of bills of exchange in medieval Europe and paper currency in medieval China, metal coins were the only such medium. Despite their diminished use in most commercial transactions, coins are ...(100 of 31115 words)

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