Silver Coin Collecting
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Standout Silver Coins for Serious Collectors by Christian Ruelas
No one can say for sure, but most historians believe that silver was mined several centuries before gold. Archeologists have found silver mines on the Aegean Sea that date back more than five thousand years. It was one of the first precious metals mankind learned to separate from lead.
In the early days, silver was not used in coin form. In parts of Ancient Egypt and Sumeria, they used ingots to facilitate trade. Ingots were really nothing more than small chunks of silver. This silver was given as tribute to rulers or as a sort of tithe to the local temples. It was not actually used as a form of currency until there was a leader everyone recognized.
The first ruler to invest in coinage was Philip II of Macedon (359-336 BC). As the head of the Greek city states, he had enough subjects to release some of the earliest silver coins. But it was his famous son, Alexander the Great, who would build his early empire on huge silver mines in northern Afghanistan. He used the precious metal to pay his vast armies and to remind them who their leader was. The concept of coinage gained acceptance as Alexander conquered most of the known world.
In later years, silver coins were used by the Roman emperors to pay their legions. In time, the coins were adopted by administrators, merchants and traders. As you might imagine, the silver coins of the ancient Greeks and Romans are among the most sought after coins in the world because they are the oldest.
Like most hobbies, coin Collecting was first practiced by adults. According to a famous historian, the first emperor of Rome, Caesar Augustus, was a Coin Collector. Coin collecting was practiced for hundreds of years without any thought of the value of history of Ancient Coins. But all that changed during the Renaissance.
During the 15th century, monarchs who were curious about the past suddenly started offering substantial sums of money for ancient coins. The pastime was so popular that it became known as
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