World Coin News April 2021

Many clubs and groups have been struggling to keep up with the shut downs across the country. Quite a few collectors have been feeling the effects of not being able to meet with their friends and fellow collectors. However, COVID-19 hasn’t stopped clubs and groups from meeting and finding ways to share their love for numismatics. Online video meetings have been an amazing use of technology. The Watchung Hill Coin Club in New Jersey is just one example. With the help of the Latvian Embassy in Washington, DC, and the Latvian National Museum of History in Riga, Latvia, John Lostys gave a presentation on Latvian coinage and currency from the last 120 years to the club and guests. Inspired by his own heritage and a previous trip to Latvia, Lostys set about…

When did the use of hubs to create coin dies begin? According to Thomas W. Becker’s book The Coin Makers, “In 1839 the reducing machine made its first appearance in European minting houses. This machine copied a design in miniature from a much larger original, directly on the face of a die. The artist prepared his design as a plaster model some four times larger than the intended coin size.” How were coin dies made prior to the invention of hubbing? Prior to hubbing, working coinage dies were made by hand. The ancient Romans called these coin die designers celators. By early modern times some of the die work such as the numbers and letters were sometimes produced from a punch, but the main design elements were still executed either by hand or…

In March 2021, Künker auctioned off an extensive collection of coins of Roman Alexandria. Among them are 14 specimens of the zodiac series of Antoninus Pius. These pieces tell us something about how we know when events took place in ancient history. Imagine there were no clocks and no calendar: how would we measure time? Basically, our ancestors developed two methods for this: some observed the sun, others the moon. Most people chose to go with one of these two options. Egyptians did not. They used both at the same time and created a civil and a religious calendar. The Sothic Cycle The basis of their civil calendar wasn’t the sun itself, but Sirius, who moves parallel to the sun and is called Sothis in Egypt. The rising of Sirius at the time…

WITH THE DEATH of Czar Fedor I in January 1598 came the end of the old dynasty founded by Rurik in A.D. 862. There was an election of sorts, but Boris Godunov (Fedor’s brother-in-law) had little difficulty in having himself named czar. He ruled Russia until his sudden death in April 1605. Beginning in 1601 a series of disasters, both natural and man-made, plagued the Godunov regime. A famine of 1601 was compounded by the rebellion begun in 1604 by the False Dmitry, who claimed to be the son of Ivan IV. The False Dmitry’s forces soon overwhelmed those of the government and he seized power in May 1605. Almost at once there were plots hatched by the nobility to rid themselves of the impostor. In May 1606 they succeeded, and…

THAI COINS CAME to my attention because of the bullet money, the toks, the tiger tongues, and the opium weights. Those things didn’t all come from Thailand, but there were dealers there, and there weren’t any in Burma (Myanmar), where the opium weights were used, or in Laos, where the canoe money came from. I like the exotic stuff. There’s lots of history in Thailand, including possibly the earliest bronze making. However, the Thai people for whom the country is currently named are relative newcomers. There is a long history of Chinese migration to Southeast Asia that was usually economic rather than political. Chinese individuals saw opportunities down there and set up shop. That happened for at least two thousand years: Chinese, or people living in China, forming communities in other countries.…

Mints are production facilities. They make coins, medals, tokens, refine bullion, and offer other related products. Coin dealers act as distributors for bullion and other new numismatic products when a mint chooses not to sell those products directly to the public. Coin dealers also act as antiquity and fine art dealers, selling older coins as second-hand merchandise to collectors who may not necessarily take an interest in new issues. It appears the British Royal Mint may have recently crossed the Rubicon, foraging into selling older collectible coins that were previously the exclusive realm of auction houses and retail coin businesses. On February 10, Numismatic Guaranty Corporation of America announced it had certified an undated 1544-1547 English Henry VIII Type Two gold sovereign for the British Royal Mint. It was further announced the…