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Gold coins the universal currency for thousands of years

definition of it | Aug 17, 2011 |

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Solidii and Ducats

Gold coins were supposedly invented in Lydia, in present day Turkey. The first coins were crude and stamped with usually an incuse square on one side, and a lion or other figure or face on the other side. You could not easily stack more than a few of these coins, because they are loaf-shaped, not flat.

Heavy gold coins weighing 7-8 grams each were circulated in the Roman Republic as early as 200 years B.C., and in the early Empire, although these were extremely high denomination coins and not used in regular transactions. They were debased gradually, and then faster, over the first half of the first millennium after Christ (0 - 500).

By the late 300s a fairly standard, nearly pure gold coin called the Bezant or Solidus was minted in Constantinople and circulated and accepted "world"wide. With the rise of Islam, Muslims first used the solidii, and then began minting and circulating their own denars of approximately 3.5 grams and of similar purity gold. Vast differences aside, both the Christians and the Muslims liked gold, in standardized weight and purity.

Before the collapse of the Byzantine empire, by the 1200s, Italian city states like Florence and then Venice minted their own 3.5 gram gold coins of almost 24 karat purity. These replaced the predominance of the solidii as the Byzantine Empire crumbled and began debasing its currency, eventually minting cup shaped coins of less than 80% purity gold.

The Venetian ducat circulated and was minted in essentially the same design, weight, and purity from the 1200s until Venice was surrendered to Napoloeon in 1798.

Meanwhile, the Italian states were slowly losing their monopoly on trade from the far east as countries like Portugal and Spain, and later the Netherlands and England found their own sea routes to the source of coveted goods. The United Provinces of the Netherlands, joined together by their hatred of occupying Catholic Spain, started issuing their own 3.5 gram almost 24 karat gold ducats in 1586, which they proudly still mint in the same size weight and purity, with the same design. You can find these coins in beautiful condition with legible dates from the 1500s through the present, with large gaps existing in the series. Many of these ducats lie at the bottom of the sea, and wait to be recovered.