NUMISMATIC SOCIETY

Evening Post, Volume CXIV, Issue 52, 30 August 1932, Page 11

NUMISMATIC SOCIETY

BEGINNINGS OF COINAGE

ILLUSTRATED ADDRESS

Despite the inclemency of the weather, there was a large audience at the Turnbull Library last evening to hear Professor J. Rankine Brown, a vice-president of the New Zealand Numismatic Society, deliver an illustrated address before members of the society and their friends on the subject, ''The Beginnings of Coinage." His Excellency the Governor-General, Lord Bledisloe, attended by Lieut. I Elworthy, was present. v ~- After welcoming His Excellency, the Rev. D. C. Bates introduced the lecturer, who delivered a most interesting address. Professor 'Brown showed some beautiful and artistic specimens of early coinage,' which were thrown into relief on a specially prepared screen with stereoscopic effect. | His Excellency, in moving a vote oE thanks, paid a striking tribute to the professor for his very informative and illuminating address, and the excellence of the slides shown. "Dr. Rankine Brown lias carried us this evening into an atmos- | phere of placid archaeological culture with, —as we should expect of him—a thoroughly cultured outlook, a profundity of classical erudition, and a clarity of exposition which it would be difficult to excel," | said His Excellency. The slides shown bore marked evidence of the little advance made in coinage designs during the last 2500 years. There was a beauty of design, an accuracy of delineation, and a vitality apparent in ancient coins that was not in evidence in later designs. Dr. Rankine Brown bad given his hearers a veritable feast from an intellectual and I artistic standpoint, and His Excellency coricluded by expressing the view'that the lecture was worthy of wide publication, especially among numismatists. Dr. J. S. Elliott, a vice-president of the society, seconded the motion, which was carried with acclamation. On the motion of Dr. : Rankiue Brown a hearty vote of thanks was accorded to Mr.. Bland for the skill and care shown in displaying the slides. The special exhibits of the evening,arranged by Mr. Allan Sutherland, hon. secretary ,xand by courtesy of Mr. W. R. Oliver, included .a rare New Zealand decoration, the New Zealand Cross, awarded for service^ in the Maori War, and the New Zealand Medal, also awarded for war service within New Zealand shores. The latter medal, however, is not rare. Another notable exhibit was an order of Knighthood of the Papal State, the Knight Commander of the Order of St. "Gregory the Great, conferred in 1922 on Mr. P. D. Hoskins,' "Wellington. The exhibits also included gold and silver coins exhibited by Mr. Bates and Mr. H. R. Ford, .and gold and silver medals won by the Department of Agriculture. Also some electrotype's of early Greek coins, ancient Roman gold coins, and a large silver Coronation Medal. At a council meeting of the society held earlier in the evening twelve new members were elected, and Mr.-J. W. M. Smith was appointed a member of the council. INVENTION OF THE GREEKS. During the course of his lecture, Professor Rankine Brown said that, coinage like many other elements o£ modern life was the invention of the Greeks—the Greeks were not the first people to use pieces of metal o£ ascertained weight as a medium of exchange, but by putting _ a stamp on these pieces of metal they- invented coinage. The first step in this direction was taken by the Greeks in Asia Minor; -where the traders issued small pieces of eleetrum stamped with a distinctive mark —in the first instance by a punch. Such coins are called "incuse." A further development was to sink this mark into the anvil in the form of a die— so' that the mark on the obverse stood out on the coin instead of.being punched into it. Croesus, King of Lydia, 560-546 8.C., was the first person to coin gold and silver. , ■~.'■ The first community in Greece proper to issue coins was the Island of Aegina, whose inhabitauts carried on in early days the retail trade of the Peloponnese, Their coins mnrked with a tortoise are all incuse and for some time were the prevailing coinage in Greece. The first community/ to challenge the supremacy of Aegina was Corinth, in whose hands was the trade -with the Greek cities in Magna Graeeia and Sicily. Corinth was the first city to distinguish coins by the mark, not merely by the size and weight, at first by dividing her symbol— the winged horse or Pegasus—into portions according to the yajue of the coin, but ultimately by adopting a different device on the reverse" side of the coin. In this way coins came to have a design on both sides. THE "OWLS" OF 'ATHENS. The next great coinage of Greece was that •of Athens, instituted possibly by Solon and immensely improved by Peisistratus in the second half of the sixth century. It was Peisistratus who first put the head of the patron god or goddess —in the case o£ Athens, Athene—on the obverse of the coin together with lettering to signify the issuing authority. Both these practices became, universal among the Greeks. For a considerable time the "owls" of Athens were the recognised medium of exchange in" the Aegean—and for that reason there is little variation in their type. ■ The Greek coinage is essentially a silver coinage. The coinage of gold came in with Philip II and Alexander of Macedonia, in the fourth century, whose gold coins ' circulated as freely in the ancient world as the British sovereign used to do on the Continent o£ Europe. Copper was only coined as a money of necessity until the Roman Imperial period, when the coinage of silver came to an end. All through the period of free Greece no head or emblem" connected with a human being appeared on their ciins. This began in the Hellenistic period after 300 8.C., when the reigning monarchs of the great kingdoms which arose on the breaking up of Alexander's empire gradually came to put their effigies on their coins,