Web Directory: Medieval Coinage

This website is dedicated to Serbian medieval coins research, especially King Radoslav coins which are first, rarest and most valuable Serbian medieval coins today. There is much information, and some of the coins are for sale.

Medieval Bulgarian coinage are the coins minted by the Bulgarian Emperors during the Middle Ages at the time of the Second Bulgarian Empire.

There is no evidence that coins were minted during the First Bulgarian Empire, and minting ceased after the fall of the Second Empire with Ottoman domination in 1396 or 1422. They were gold (perperi), silver (aspri), billon (coinage of silver and copper) and copper coins, all flat and hollow. The inscriptions were usually in Bulgarian language and rarely in Greek. Due to the limited space the inscriptions were abbreviated, often written with a few letters and special signs. Artistically, they continued the Byzantine numismatic tradition but the designs were often more schematic. The main means of expression were lines and dots. The Bulgarian coins had images different from the Byzantine and Slav coinage, so they form a distinct group. The coins are an important source for the history of the Second Bulgarian Empire.

A bodle or boddle or bodwell, also known as a half groat or Turner was a Scottish copper coin, of less value than a bawbee, worth about one-sixth of an English penny, first issued under Charles II. They were minted until the coronation of Anne. Its name may derive from Bothwell (a mint-master).

Soldo was the name an Italian medieval silver coin, issued for the first time in the late 12th century at Milan by Emperor Henry VI. The name derives from the late Roman coin solidus.

Byzantine currency, money used in the Eastern Roman Empire after the fall of the West, consisted of mainly two types of coins: the gold solidus and a variety of clearly valued bronze coins. By the end of the empire the currency was issued only in silver stavrata and minor copper coins with no gold issue.

A farthing (derived from the Anglo-Saxon feorthing, a fourthling or fourth part) was a coin of the Kingdom of England worth one quarter of a penny, ​1⁄960 of a pound sterling. Such coins were first minted in England in silver in the 13th century, and continued to be used until the Kingdom of England was merged into the new Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707.

The Vereinsthaler (union thaler) was a standard silver coin used in most German states and the Austrian Empire in the years before German unification.

The ducat was a gold or silver coin used as a trade coin in Europe from the later medieval centuries until as late as the 20th century. Many types of ducats had various metallic content and purchasing power throughout the period. The gold ducat of Venice gained wide international acceptance, like the medieval Byzantine hyperpyron and the Florentine florin, or the modern British pound sterling and the United States dollar.

The first mention of a "Serbian dinar" dates back to the reign of Stefan Nemanjić in 1214. Until the fall of the Serbian Despotate in 1459, most of the Serbian rulers minted silver dinar coins. The first Serbian dinars, like many other Southern European coins, replicated Venetian grosso, including characters in Latin (the word dux replaced with the word rex). For many years it was one of the main export articles of medieval Serbia, considering the relative abundance of silver coming from Serbian mines. Venetians were weary of this, and Dante Alighieri went so far as to put the Serbian king of his time, Stefan Milutin, in Hell as forgerer (along with his Portuguese and Norwegian counterparts).

From c.1124 until 1709 the coinage of Scotland was unique, and minted locally. A wide variety of coins, such as the plack, bodle, bawbee, dollar and ryal were produced over that time. For trading purposes coins of Northumbria and various other places had been used before that time; and since 1709 those of the Kingdom of Great Britain, and then of the UK.

Penny (Scottish Gaelic: peighinn, but see below) was used in Scottish parlance for money generally; for example, a "penny-fee" was an expression for wages, a "penny-maister" would be a town treasurer, and a "penny-wedding" was one where every guest contributed to pay for the event. Meanwhile, penny-wheep was particularly poor beer.

The batzen was a coin produced by Bern, Switzerland, from the 15th century until the mid-19th century.

The poltura is a historic Hungarian monetary unit that was struck under the Hungarian rulers Leopold I, Joseph I, Francis II Rákóczi, Charles III and Maria Theresa. Its forerunner was the Polish poltorak, a coin equal to one and one-half grosz (półtora means one and a half in Polish).

The rijksdaalder (Dutch, "dollar of the realm") was a Dutch coin first issued by the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands in the late 16th century during the Dutch Revolt. Featuring an armored half bust of William the Silent, rijksdaalder was minted to the Saxon reichsthaler weight standard - 448 grains of .885 fine silver. Friesland, Gelderland, Holland, Kampen, Overijssel, Utrecht, West Friesland, Zeeland, and Zwolle minted armored half bust rijksdaalders until the end of the 17th century.

The denier was a medieval coin which takes its name from the Frankish coin first issued (as the denarius) in the late seventh century; in English it is sometimes referred to as a silver penny. Its appearance represents the end of gold coinage, which, at the start of Frankish rule, had either been Byzantine or "pseudo-imperial" (minted by the Franks in imitation of Byzantine coinage). Silver would be the basis for Frankish coinage going forward.

The sequin (Venetian/Italian: zecchino) is a gold coin weighing 3.5 grams (0.12 oz) of .986 gold, minted by the Republic of Venice from the 13th century onwards. The design of the Venetian gold ducat, or zecchino, remained unchanged for over 500 years, from its introduction in 1284 to the takeover of Venice by Napoleon in 1797. No other coin design has ever been produced over such a long historical period. The 500-year run of the zecchino is unique in history.

The solidus (Latin for "solid"; pl. solidi), nomisma (Greek: νόμισμα, nómisma, lit. "coin"), or bezant was originally a relatively pure gold coin issued in the Late Roman Empire. Under Constantine, who introduced it on a wide scale, it had a weight of about 4.5 grams. It was largely replaced in Western Europe by Pepin the Short's currency reform, which introduced the silver-based pound/shilling/penny system, under which the shilling (Latin: solidus) functioned as a unit of account equivalent to 12 pence, eventually developing into the French sou. In Eastern Europe, the nomisma was gradually debased by the Byzantine emperors until it was abolished by Alexius I in 1092, who replaced it with the hyperpyron, which also came to be known as a "bezant". The Byzantine solidus also inspired the originally slightly less pure Arab dinar.

The groat is the traditional name of a long-defunct English and Irish silver coin worth four pence, and also a Scottish coin originally worth fourpence, with later issues being valued at eightpence and one shilling.

The Florentine florin was a coin struck from 1252 to 1533 with no significant change in its design or metal content standard during that time. It had 54 grains of nominally pure or 'fine' gold (3.5368 grams, 0.1125 troy ounce) with a purchasing power difficult to estimate (and variable) but ranging according to social grouping and perspective from approximately 140 to 1000 modern US dollars. The name of the coin comes from the flower of the Giglio bottonato which is represented at the head of the coin.

The quattrino is an ancient Italian currency denomination largely used in Central Italy, especially in Tuscany and Rome. Its name derives from the Latin quater denari, because its value was equal to four denari. Consequently, its value was one third of a soldo. It disappeared after the unification of Italy in 1861, when the Italian lira was introduced as an equivalent of the french franc.

The Venetian grosso (plural Grossi) is a silver coin first introduced in Venice in 1193 under doge Enrico Dandolo. It originally weighed 2.18 grams, was composed of 98.5% pure silver, and was valued at 26 dinarii. Its name is from the same root as groschen and the English groat, all deriving ultimately from the denaro grosso ("large penny").

The merk was a Scottish silver coin. Originally the same word as a money mark of silver, the merk was in circulation at the end of the 16th century and in the 17th century. It was originally valued at 13s 4d (exactly ​2⁄3 of a pound Scots, or about one English shilling), later raised to 14s Scots. In addition to merks, half-merk and quarter-merk coins were produced with values of, respectively, 7s and 3s 6d, as well as a four-merk coin of 56s (£2 16s).

Most of the pre-modern coinage used in Sri Lanka or coins used in pre-Christian Sri Lanka can be categorised as Punch-marked coins, Tree and Swastika coins, Elephant and Swastika coins and Lakshmi plaques.

The first dated coins that can be assigned to the Muslims are copies of silver Dirhams of the Sassanian ruler Yazdegerd III, struck during the Caliphate of Uthman. These coins differ from the original ones in that an Arabic inscription is found in the obverse margins, normally reading "In the Name of Allah". The subsequent series was issued using types based on drachmas of Khosrau II, whose coins probably represented a significant proportion of the currency in circulation.

The Western Xia Empire ruled over what what are now the northwestern Chinese provinces of Ningxia, Gansu, eastern Qinghai, northern Shaanxi, northeastern Xinjiang, southwest Inner Mongolia, and southernmost Outer Mongolia from 1032 until 1227 when they were destroyed by the Mongols.

Scyphate is a term frequently used in numismatics to refer to the concave or "cup-shaped" Byzantine coins of the 11th–14th centuries.

This usage emerged in the 19th century, when the term scyphatus, attested in south Italian documents of the 11th and 12th centuries, was erroneously interpreted as deriving from the Greek word skyphos (σκύφος, "cup"). In reality, the term probably derives from the Arabic word shafah, "edge, rim", and refers to the distinctive and conspicuous border of the early histamena gold coins. Due to this misunderstanding, the term "scyphate" has been widely applied to the concave gold, silver, and copper coins of the late Byzantine Empire and the foreign issues imitating it. These coins are more properly designated as trachea (singular: trachy, from Greek τραχύ, "rough, uneven").

A Lion was a Scottish gold coin ordered to be struck in 1451 which featured a lion on one side and a depiction of St. Andrew on the other. The coin weighted the same as half an English Noble and was worth six shillings and eight pence.

A plack (Scottish Gaelic: plang) was an ancient Scottish coin of the value of four Scots pennies or by 1707 one third of an English penny.

The hyperpyron (Greek: νόμισμα ὑπέρπυρον) was a Byzantine coin in use during the late Middle Ages, replacing the solidus as the Byzantine Empire's gold coinage.

The stavraton or stauraton (Greek: σταυράτον) was a type of silver coin used during the last century of the Byzantine Empire.

The Bolognino was a coin minted in Bologna and other cities of medieval Italy from the late 12th century to the 17th century.

The basilikon (Greek: βασιλικόν [νόμισμα], "imperial [coin]"), commonly also referred to as the doukaton (Greek: δουκάτον), was a widely circulated Byzantine silver coin of the first half of the 14th century. Its introduction marked the return to a wide-scale use of silver coinage in the Byzantine Empire, and presaged the total abandonment of the gold coins around the middle of the century.

A bawbee was a Scottish halfpenny. The word means a debased copper coin, valued at six pence Scots (equal at the time to an English half-penny), issued from the reign of James V of Scotland to the reign of William II of Scotland. They were hammered until 1677, when they were produced upon screw presses.

The miliaresion (Greek: μιλιαρήσιον, from Latin: miliarensis), was a name used for a number of Byzantine silver coins. In its most specific sense, it refers to a type of silver coin struck in the 8th–11th centuries.

The first mention of a "Serbian dinar" dates back to the reign of Stefan Nemanjić in 1214. Until the fall of the Serbian Despotate in 1459, most of the Serbian rulers minted silver dinar coins. The first Serbian dinars, like many other Southern European coins, replicated Venetian grosso, including characters in Latin (the word dux replaced with the word rex). For many years it was one of the main export articles of medieval Serbia, considering the relative abundance of silver coming from Serbian mines.

The Demy was a Scottish gold coin struck under reign of James I of Scotland and based on the English half Noble coin. With a face value 9 Scottish shillings the coin was later replaced with the Lion coin by James II of Scotland.

In legends of Ilkhanid coins, other than Arabic, there are also Mongolian lines written with two different scripts, Uighur and hP’agspa. Although both of these scripts are written vertically from top to bottom and from left to right, just for the sake of harmony with Arabic lines, in the following pages, Mongolian legends also have been placed horizontally, from right to left. I think, the engravers have thought the same way, because the original lines on the coins also are horizontal and from right to left, except hP’ags-pa. Uighur lines are just rotated forms of the original script, 90° clockwise. The coins already are round objects, so it does not matter too much.

The hexagram (Greek: ἑξάγραμμα, hexagramma) was a large silver coin of the Byzantine Empire issued primarily during the 7th century AD.

A Dam was a small Indian copper coin. The coin was first introduced by Sher Shah Suri during his rule of India between 1540 and 1545, along with Mohur, the gold coin and Rupiya the silver coin Later on, the Mughal Emperors standardised the coin along with other silver (Rupiya) and gold (Mohur) coins in order to consolidate the monetary system across India.

Website with extensive information on pre-modern Dutch copper coins (duits). In Dutch.

The Kraków grosz (Latin: grossus cracoviensis (sing.), grossi cracovienses (pl.), Polish: grosz krakowski, German: Krakauer Groschen) were medieval silver coins minted in 14th century Kraków. Following the Bohemian Prague groschen in use since 1300, and other large silver Groschen-type coins issued in the Holy Roman Empire, the coin was introduced in 1367 during the reign of king Casimir III of Poland.

The Perper was the currency used in Serbia under Emperor Dušan. Its name comes from the Byzantine coin hyperpyron.

This site features images and history of all the coins in John Gatt's collection, which includes coins from the Roman period when Malta and Gozo were called Melita and Gaulos, and coins of the Knights of Malta, that were minted in Malta between 1530 and 1798.

The Florentine florin was a coin struck from 1252 to 1533 with no significant change in its design or metal content standard during that time. It had 54 grains of nominally pure or 'fine' gold (3.5 grams, 0.1125 troy ounce) worth approximately 140 modern US dollars. The "fiorino d'oro" of the Republic of Florence was the first European gold coin struck in sufficient quantities to play a significant commercial role since the seventh century. As many Florentine banks were international supercompanies with branches across Europe, the florin quickly became the dominant trade coin of Western Europe for large-scale transactions, replacing silver bars in multiples of the mark (a weight unit equal to eight troy ounces).

This is a noncommercial presentation of the remarkable collection of German coins known as the Saurmasche Münzsammlung. Formed by a 19th century German aristocrat, Hugo, Freiherr von Saurma-Jeltsch, this collection concentrates on the smaller-size, everyday coinage used in Germany and in nearby regions from around 1280 to 1620 AD.

The unicorn was a gold coin that formed part of Scottish coinage between 1484 and 1525. It was initially issued in the reign of James III with a value of 18 shillings Scots, but rising gold prices during the reign of James V caused its value to increase first to 20 shillings, and then 22. The obverse of the coin shows a crowned unicorn. The significance is that the unicorn is one of the heraldic symbols of Scotland, two of them occurring, most notably, crowned and chained, as the supporters of the royal coat of arms of Scotland.

The history of the English penny can be traced back to the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of the 7th century: to the small, thick silver coins known to contemporaries as pæningas or denarii, though now often referred to as sceattas by numismatists. Broader, thinner pennies inscribed with the name of the king were introduced to southern England in the middle of the 8th century. Coins of this format remained the foundation of the English currency until the 14th century.