Definition: What Are "Old Coins""

For lots of non numismatic folks:-
anything that has been in general circulation, that has gold or silver in it.
For me:-
any coin made before the industrial revolution.

Ancient coins are not old. They are ancient.
Nevertheless, my mind has become somewhat jaded, somewhat like Finn's.
Roman coins were still in general circulation less than 60 human generations ago.
And there is less than 1,000 New Moons in an average human lifetime.

Erafjel - I guess you can take the boy out of the ghetto, but not the ghetto out of the boy with me.

Seriously terminology for England/UK etc

150 - 45 BC - Celtic era coins (Including Gallo Belgic staters)
60BC - 45AD - Celtic Kingdom coins (Iceni, Atrebates, Durotriges etc and some Roman trade coins)
41AD - 400AD - Roman coins including imperial coins and some locally minted ones. Records show that coins stopped being imported and manufactered in Britannia around 385AD and usage had stopped by 405AD

405AD - 620AD - Era where no coins were minted or even used in Britannia, although 6th century sites in Cornwall revealed Byzantine coins and evidence of a few foreign coins in burials.

620AD - 800sAD Approx - Early Saxon coins - Sceattas and Thrymsas, started off as gold and got debased so that by 700AD were silver - coins known as units, very crude.

775AD - 925AD - The first penny sized coins in Mercia, these coins had King portraits and symbols often crosses and swords. Also Viking coins and many kingdoms and ecclesiastical authorities issuing fine silver pennies. Mid Saxons

925AD - 1066AD - Period of all England Coins - Late Saxon, the pennies of this era were very well minted and actually of a higher quality than the succeeding Medieval coins!

1066 - 1279 - Norman and early Plantagenet era - Mainly pennies of varying quality minted at London and numerous provincial mints and even by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York. The mid to late 12th century onwards saw very low quality and crude coins - 1124AD the Assize of the Moneyers - King henry I had several moneyers mutilated for inferior quality coins. Gold penny of 1244 was a huge flop, increasing usage of Venetian and Dutch gold ducats.

1279 - 1504 - Late Medieval, starting with the fine silver groats of Edward I, by 1344 a gold coinage was in use and the silver included groats (4d), their halves and pennies and their farctions. Frequent debasings and size reductions, generic pennies with portrait of facing king.

1504 - 1662 - Early Modern era - 1504 was the first "Renaissance coins" a profile portrait of the king and new testoon (1/-) coin. The mid 1500s saw coins up to 30/- in gold issued and the arrival of crowns and halfcrowns as well. Debasing in 1540s and 1550s and numerous seige coinages in the 1640s civil war. This era saw the end of hammered coinage in 1662.

1662 - 1815 - The Age of Change - Nice milled coins, values of Gold guineas, Silver shillings and copper fractional coins. Good and regular issues to 1750s, however spasmodic 1760s to 1815 - experiments with steam press coins.

1816 - 1919 - Victorian magnificence - Coinage reform in 1816 saw steam made coins perfectly regular and a reliable coinage based on gold standard - coins issued most years, arrival of Florin (1/10 of a pound) in 1849 and sovereign made up of 20/- (The guinea fluctuated).

1920 - 1971 - Debased silver and Cupronickel coinage

1971 - now Modern decimal British coinage.

Hope this is better than *** Edited by Staff | The bad word filter is in place for a reason. Bypassing the filter and making the intended word obvious anyway is completely unacceptable. ***

The most basic form of describing an old coin - is one you can't spend any more, because its too old.

"What do you mean I can not spend this groat"

My definition of old for a human being is my age + 1 year, so now its 45 and next year will be 46 etc

When people say "old coins" they usually mean "coins from before I was born" - whenever that was. Sometimes they mean "obsolete coins" - this is especially so in Europe, where "old coins" are "pre-Euro coins".

On a related note, it's often debated about exactly where the lines are between "ancient", "mediaeval" and "modern". As coin collecting began in the Renaissance, we usually stay pretty close to the Renaissance definitions: "ancient" is anything up the fall of the Western Roman Empire (AD 476), mediaeval is anything between 476 and the dawn of the Renaissance, and Modern is from then until now. One can debate about when the Renaissance started; the life and work of Petrarch (died 1374) is often cited, but is perhaps a bit too early for most people's tastes.

Personally, I define "ancient" to be anything up to the bronze coinage reform of Roman/Byzantine emperor Anastasius in AD 498 - so "AD 500" is a nice round number at around the correct time period.

The end of the Mediaeval and beginning of the Modern period is much... squishier. Personally, I pick the date 1450, as that seems to be about the time when coinage begins to become artistically "modern" in design and style. Any coin dated after 1450 is "modern" for me, and goes in my "modern world coins" albums, rather than the "mediaeval" album.

I'd have picked 1486, the date of the first modern crown-sized silver, though of course "let's make large silver now" was a gradual process that started at least as early as the Trono lira of 1472.

Non-numismatic historians usually pick various dates in 1492 (usually January 2nd or October 12th, though I think I've seen a few use March 31st), or occasionally 1453; I, personally, used to propose equating the Middle Ages with the 7th millenium of the Byzantine calendar, which puts this particular boundary on March 1st, 1492.