How The Hobby Of Collecting Coins Began

A Brief History of Coins and Coin Collectingoften being passed down within families.
Very few things tell more about a country inCoin Collection in Renaissance Times
fewer words than the coins it produces. CoinsModern coin collecting, where the coins are
hold a wealth of information on their small faces,viewed as a work of art as well as a collection of
from the year of their birth to the languagevaluable legal tender, is widely thought to have
spoken at the time, from the metals a countrybegun with Francesco Petrarca, or Petrarch, who
holds valuable to the cultural influences andis often called the father of the Renaissance.
historical figures that its people hold valuable. CoinsAlthough there is reason to believe that Roman
can also be strikingly beautiful in their own right,emperors and citizens paid prices higher than face
with the top designers of a nation striving to havevalue for coins that were no longer in circulation,
their motif chosen for immortality on the face ofPetrarch was known to be an avid collector, and
a coin. With so much information and beautyoften spoke of his collection in his writing. During
contained in so small a package, it is no surprisethe Renaissance, popes and nobility began
that coin collecting has been a hobby nearly ascollecting coins for their artistic and historical value,
long as the concept of coins themselves. Anand the name the hobby of kings was born. So
understanding of the long history of coin collecting,popular was the pursuit and trade of ancient
once known as the hobby of kings, will make thisGreek and Roman coins in this time period, that a
pastime even more enjoyable.brisk business in high-quality counterfeits sprang
The Origin of Coins and Coin Collectinginto being. Today, these counterfeits even have a
The hobby of coin collecting began nearly as soonhigh value, due to their age, quality, and historical
as the first coins were minted in Asia Minor,significance.
around 650 B.C. Before that time, gold and silverCoin Collecting in Modern Times
ingots were the most common form of legalCoin collecting has been a favorite pastime of
tender. Because there was no standard, however,many people with a reverence for history,
each trade necessitated a careful weighing andincluding U.S. Presidents Thomas Jefferson and
examination of the precious metals being offered,John Adams. The development of two large coin
and it was easy for unscrupulous merchants toorganizations in the mid-to-late 1800s, the
pass off a lesser quality of gold in trade. Coins,American Numismatic Society (ANS) and the
which were printed on standardized weights ofAmerican Numismatic Association (ANA), helped
precious metals and stamped with a governmentspark American interest in building and maintaining
guarantee of value, was the answer to thisa coin collection. Today, there has been an
unwieldy, easily sabotaged trading process. Withinexplosion in American interest in coin collecting, in
one hundred years, the concept of coins hadlarge part due to the ease and availability of
been adopted by all of the major trading cities inobtaining interesting coins. The U.S. Mint has
the civilized world.successfully increased interest in starting a coin
At the beginning, coin collecting had a verycollection through the minting of specialty coins,
practical reason there were no banks in which tosuch as the bicentennial half dollars released in
store money. People hoarded coins as a way of1976 and the current release of quarters
safeguarding their wealth. Those coins that werecommemorating each of the fifty states.
especially beautiful were hoarded the longest,