Editor's note: Jeremy Haag was an intern at PCGS over the summer. In the upcoming months, we will publish a number of his essays on numismatics.

At the very early stages of trade, humans relied on barter to obtain wanted goods they could not produce themselves. As time progressed and the need for a simpler system of exchange developed, several forms of odd and curious money came into use. Seashells, metal rings, and cast objects were all used at one point or another as a form of currency. The idea evolved until someone thought of stamping marks of value onto nuggets of precious metal. Once coinage got its start, there was little to slow its spread of influence. In the span of two hundred years, nearly the entire Greek world was minting coinage. The production procedures were perfected to a science and lasted until the Renaissance when machinery came into use.

Nuggets of precious metal were originally used in various forms as a medium of exchange. The drawback of this was that each time the nuggets changed hands, the value had to be re-determined by weighing and testing the purity. With the introduction of coinage, those same nuggets were transformed into an easily accepted form of money. Though often irregularly shaped, ancient coins bore recognizable designs attesting to the issuing authority's guarantee of weight, purity, and value. The Lydians are acknowledged with the invention of the first coins in the seventh century BC, but the evolution of coinage can largely be credited to the Greeks. The spread of coinage was very rapid and by 500 BC most of the important Greek cities were minting. The first coins were composed of precious metal such as gold, electrum, and silver and were usually produced in large denominations. It seems probable that some time must have elapsed before coins were used for general trade or shopping. The original purpose of coinage was most probably to facilitate specific needs of the state such as to pay mercenary soldiers. Because governments issued them, the coins often declare independence or civic pride. They would have later been used to receive state income such as taxes or to facilitate exchange within the state or externally. Small change was a later development that eventually led to the introduction of bronze coinage in the fifth century BC. By this time coinage began to be used as a store of wealth and was employed in trade.

The technical methods the Greeks used to produce ancient coins were actually fairly simple and were done completely by hand. The first step would be to prepare the lumps of metal, or planchets. The metal would be melted and cast in molds into suitable shapes and weight for striking. The planchets differ just as the designs do. Some molds were for individual planchets, others had channels that formed strips of planchets that were later broken apart after striking, and still others exhibited beveled or serrated edges. Once cooled, the planchets would be stored until needed. Modern attempts have shown this process is not as simple as it sounds. The accuracy in weight of the planchets is amazing and experts still do not fully understand how the ancient mints managed such precision.

Once ready for striking, the planchet would be heated just below the melting point and placed with a pair of tongs onto the obverse die fixed in the anvil. The upper die with the reverse design was placed on top of the planchet to be struck by a hammer. With a single blow the impression of both dies was left on the planchet transforming it into a coin. Because each coin was struck by hand, the results of striking would vary with the die alignment, pressure of strike, and sometimes the temperature of the planchet. Even two coins struck from the same pair of dies will exhibit differences. Eventually hinged dies were developed that kept the obverse and reverse dies in perfect alignment. Despite the labor involved, mints were capable of producing large quantities of well-struck specimens. Mint supervisors, or magistrates, pushed the mint workers to produce as many coins as possible while ensuring the quality of the product and preventing fraud. Due to the tight security, relatively few artifacts remain from actual mint operation. Mint workers needed to not only be very talented but also adequately motivated. In cases where they were not, it is obvious. Literally tons of mis-struck coins on bad planchets or coins that exhibit some kind of striking error escaped the mints and have survived in various stages of circulation.

Individuals known as celators engraved the coin designs into the bronze dies. The earliest of coins were marked with a single punch that had a simple design. Lines were scratched into the anvil to help prevent the planchet from moving. Because most coin designs were rendered in relief, a negative of the design was engraved in the die. Later, a die was placed in the anvil to provide a second template for the engraver's work. At this stage coins had both an obverse and reverse design. The first designs found on coinage are rather simple depicting civic badges. As time passed though, the designs became more involved depicting animals, plants, and mythological figures. Impressively, the celators relied on the naked eye to engrave these intricate designs. The bronze dies were very easy to engrave, and, once completed, would be hardened over intense flames. A die of this type could strike at least ten thousand specimens without damage or wear to the die and would have been used until it significantly deteriorated. Today many look at ancient coins as miniature works of art. The Greeks themselves saw their coins as pieces of art and actually copied designs from other coins and artwork. Some celators are known to have traveled from city to city offering their services to the local mints. At the height of artistic creativity in coinage, issuing authorities such as Sicily actually allowed the celators to place their signatures on the coins. This is a rarity in the early history of coinage and reflects how the Greeks admired coinage in the same way as pottery or carved gems.

The technology and methods employed by the ancient Greeks and Romans continued up until the seventeenth century. At this time minting machinery began to be employed by the Europeans, which resulted in planchets that were more perfectly round. This allowed the coins to be better struck and more consistent in size and shape. These coins look very much like the coins that are in circulation today. By studying the ancient coins themselves, much can be learned of the minting techniques employed. There is still debate on how the planchets of Alexandrian bronze coinage were prepared and why some Roman Republican denarii exhibit serrated edges. Part of the fun of this area is making observations on the remnants of minting preparation and trying to work backward through the minting process to determine how and why they resulted.

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