Gold Coins Through Time

Gold and silver dominated the trade in Mediterranean two thousand years BC. Ancient civilizations of the time used these metals in form of ingots, which could be shaped variously according to the purpose at hand. It was not until the 6th Century BC that the first true coins, made of gold-silver alloy electrum, came into existence in Lydia (part of Turkey now) in the reign of King Croesus.

These coins weighed between less than a gram to over seventeen grams, depicted a lion or bull on one side and a punch or seal on the other face. The coinage business was dominated by silver until Philip II of Macedon (father to Alexander the Great) took the gold and silver mines of Thrace (now in Bulgaria). Gold coins were then used for paying military men.

Greek Empire and Gold Coins

As Alexander the Great (336-323 BC) expanded his empire to include Persia, gold became the primary means of paying army men. One major change introduced at that time was replacing the animal figures on coins with the king’s figure. The Romans, who also paid their legionnaires with gold coins, later adopted this practice. These gold coins, called aurei, were a little more than seven grams and used in payment to administrative staff, as well as in trade.   

Gold Coins in the Roman Period

Aurei were the more valuable coins in the Roman period, and smaller coins of gold, called solidus, came in use in use after 300 AD. These weighed about four and a half grams. This was a time of deluge in gold coin business with millions of coins distributed across the Roman Empire. The British Museum in London showcases many of these coins today. After the fall of the Roman Empire in early 5th Century AD, wide use of gold coins went on a long hiatus for nearly a millennium.    

The Bezant Age

After the fall of the Romans, the Byzantine Empire in Constantinople (Turkey) kept using solidus as the principal gold coin, coming to be known as bezant and dropping in gold content to a measure in milligrams. The emperor Alexius Comnenus restored the coin’s weight to 4.4 grams and the coin was named was hyperpyron (called perpero by Venetians). In the 8th Century AD, the Muslim Empire expanded through the Middle East and North Africa, and gold was used to make their currency, dinar. Gold coins of Muslim usage lost the figure of leaders and only calligraphy was allowed to adorn the coin’s face. 

Venetian Gold Coins

By the mid 13th Century, Venice grew strong enough to become the major market of gold. The first gold ducat weighing three and a half grams was introduced in the later 13th Century and thrived for the next five hundred years.

The Renaissance

In the 14th Century, the whole of Europe actively took up coin making. Enormous diversity in gold coins became a feature of Europe’s currency. Twenty-five types of gold coins are recorded from several European nations during the 14th Century. As Portugal introduced the cruzado coin of African gold in 1457, Henry VII introduced the first sovereign, weighing 15.55 grams. After that, the Spanish crown became the most cherished gold coin. In the 16th and 17th Centuries, silver coins once again out competed gold ones in Europe.

The Eighteenth Century

In the end 17th Century, discovery of gold in Brazil created a resurgence of the use of gold coins in Britain, especially in the form of guineas (8.7 grams). Guineas were in great circulation throughout the 18th Century. The Coinage Act of 1816 replaced guinea with the Sovereign (7.77 grams).

The Nineteenth Century

Gold coinage saw a final bloom in the mid 19th Century in the US and Australia when gold production took off. Nearly all the mined gold was used in coinage. Britain and Australia produced Sovereigns; United Sates made Eagles; Germany and Russia produced Mark and Rouble respectively; Austria mad use of Crowns; Florins came in Hungary; and Napoleons roamed in France. All this ceased with the First World War when governments valued their gold more than everything else. In 1993, the US government recalled all gold and gold coins from its citizens, and put an end to the era of gold coinage.                    

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