The History of Gold Coins and the Ties with the Evolution of Mankind

Britain’s Ipswich museum just added to its display the largest ever haul of Iron Age gold coins. Dated from between 20 BC to 20 AD, the collection has 840 coins. They are said to have been hidden by the warrior queen of the Iceni tribe some 2,000 years ago as she led the battle against the Romans. Ipswich Museum’s curator of archaeology, Caroline McDonald, said, “It provides an insight into the Iceni’s humanity. These were people that lived through great turmoil which must have led to this act of deliberately burying these coins.” Also discovered were some coins of a nearby tribe mixed with the Iceni coins, thereby making it clear that trade and political ties between them were strong. Currency in itself is a great leap for man in terms of an abstraction of thought. With the barter system, man seemed to be trading goods and valuing them according to utility. With currency, man began to symbolise and attribute value to other things such as metal. Gold coins were especially revered because of the rarity of the metal and its malleability.

The Golden Progress of Man

Our fascination with the shiny metal began with adorning buildings and making ornaments for decoration purposes. Its rarity and beauty caught on and it began to be used as currency. All through the time, man continued to develop more, the mining became more sophisticated and the coins of better quality.

As money: The first gold coins were produced by the Lydians in 630 BC. The metal used was an alloy of gold and silver, electrum, which occurs naturally. As technology developed, the kingdoms began to issue gold coins and continued to do so for centuries to come. Many a battle was fought over possession of the metal and gold passed several hands as lands were plundered; ships sank for the sake of procuring gold. Meanwhile, kingdoms such as the Celts, the Romans and others continued to mint the coins. Gradually their designs began to represent seals of the kingdoms. Written records began to be kept and accounting flourished as did counterfeiting and greed. A significant coin of the era was the sovereign, which was introduced in 1498. The 1700s saw new industrializing nations in a perpetual economic crisis which John Law then solved with paper money.

As myth: Gold holds mighty value even within our belief systems. Many a religion has myths and folklores relating to gold, such as in Hinduism, gold holds a special place in rituals and is considered a very auspicious metal even as a gift, especially if gifted to a new bride. The Irish leprechauns and the idea of the fool’s gold is another example of how gold and its greed has filtered into our belief systems.

As industry: Mining practices, grading practices and ways of making sure that the gold is refined to its purest states have seen much evolution. As man evolved scientifically, he continued to hone these technologies to be able to procure gold in a better manner. The Industrial Revolution saw James Watt develop the steam engine run coining presses which revolutionized the gold coin industry. Since gold is scarce, it could not power the revolution and paper money had to be introduced. In 1933, banknotes officially became the primary currency.

As Investment: Today gold coins are acquired as a long standing, highly liquid asset. The value of the metal keeps changing and mostly the coins are valued according to weight and purity. There are other kinds of options regarding gold as well, such as ETFs, numismatic coins and gold certificates, which only goes to show how much further the path of abstraction man has gone, such that he no longer even required the physical touch and hold of gold to be able to own it.

Once trading hands, suffering wear and tear, now locked away in safety deposit boxes or even in paper (gold certificates), gold has transcended the physical into the psyche, much like man has evolved from his basic needs to abstractness.