Greek coin: modern and ancient coins, images, weight and their value

2024 Author: Sierra Becker | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-26 03:45

The drachma is part of the Greek financial system, developed in 800 BC. The uniqueness of this coin is that it started world trade in the form in which it exists today.

Later (modern) Greek coins are no less unique than their progenitor. The last time the drachma was minted was in the nineteenth century, but in keeping with ancient traditions.

Ancient standards. The cost of ancient and modern drachma

The ancient Greeks minted coins from 900-carat gold. These, according to some historians, included the ancient Greek stater. The drachma was made of silver and served to exchange the stater. It is known that in Ancient Attica one stater was equal to twenty silver drachmas.

Some sources claim that the stater was the only Greek coin minted from gold. According to other sources, the first drachmas were also gold.

Today, numismatic value has been added to the material value of the drachma as a product made of precious metal. The coin, and with it the very concept of “drachma” (until the end of 2001, paper drachmas also circulated in Greece), went out of Greek use from the first days of 2002. Today, Greece uses the currency adopted in the European Union.

At the time of the last abolition of the drachma (today), one euro cost a little more than three hundred and forty drachmas, and fifteen years later, when numismatists remembered it, one Greek drachma - a coin minted in 1879 - was valued at two hundred euros (RUB 14,640).

Coins minted at the dawn of the twentieth century can now be found in antique shops. True, their cost is still low - from fifty euro cents to two euros (36.6 - 146 rubles).

But paper drachmas, printed in the last century, are popular. For example, for a banknote worth fifty drachmas, dated the first half of the sixties of the last century, numismatists can offer at least seven euros (512 rubles). And for twenty-five paper drachmas, made in the early twenties of the past century, they will not regret even four hundred and fifty euros (32,941 rubles).

The basis of the Greek monetary system

Even before the first coin was minted, the ancient Greeks used the so-called weight form of mutual settlements. The first weight monetary units - the forerunners of the usual money - some researchers call the following Greek coins: talent, mine, stater, drachma and obol.

In one obol (the weight of an obol is 73 milligrams) there were 8 hulks. weightthe drachma (its weight is 4 grams 37 milligrams) consisted of six obols. In one stater, there were two drachmas, and in one mine (weighed 436 grams 60 milligrams) - one hundred drachmas, or fifty staters. One talent weighed twenty-six kilograms one hundred ninety-six grams and consisted of sixty min.

The first monetary unit of the ancient Greeks according to Heraclides

According to some historians, the first mention of metal money was found in the writings of the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclid. The source believes that the ancient Greeks called their first monetary unit obols. In fact, these were metal rods that were cut into small pieces that played the role of a small Greek coin. Such a settlement system was used in the seventh - fifth centuries BC.

Although the first Greek drachma was equal to six obols, it did not exist as an independent coin. The word "drachma" meant six metal rods held in the palm of your hand.

The abolished obols were replaced by karmatikos, and then by chelons. This name was given to Greek coins due to the image of a turtle (the name of the coin coincided with the name of the animal species). Helons were recognized as the official monetary unit, not only in the ancient Greek state, but also in the global financial community. Some modern scholars argue that the first coin minted at the first ancient Greek mint was the chelon.

The minters of Ancient Greece did notsettled on the images of animals. On coins of a later time, in addition to symbols of cities and representatives of the animal world, plants and sights were depicted, as well as the faces of Greek gods and rulers.

For example, the Athenian tetradrachm was adorned on one side by the goddess Athena, and on the other, an owl (one of the symbols of the city) with an olive branch over its head.

Gold ancient Greek coins

Miletian, Phocian and Cyzicus staters also claim the title of the oldest coin. They were minted from the seventh to the fifth centuries BC.

The first was produced in the city of Miletus. This ancient Greek coin (as well as the other two) belongs to the so-called electrical monetary units. They were used on the Ionian coast - in an area that belonged to Asia Minor, but was under the yoke of the Lydian rulers.

Coins of the early period on one side were decorated with the image of a lion's head and the name of the king. Critical contemporaries can see in them only indentations of an indefinite form. The weight of the Milesian stater of those times barely exceeded fourteen grams.

Phokey stater

Phokey staters also belonged to electric coins and were minted in the city of Phocaea, where they were considered a large monetary unit. Therefore, Phocian staters were concentrated in the hands of we althy citizens. The front side of the coin was decorated with the image of a seal (an animal that was the talisman of this ancient city).

Coins of ancient Cyzicus

From the middle of the fifth century BC, staters similar to those of the Phocians began to be minted at the mints of the city of Cyzicus. It was also here that the small change of the stater was made - hekta (one coin was equal to the sixth part of the Cyzicus stater), hemigekt (the twelfth part of the stater), misgemigektu (the twenty-fourth part of the Cyzicus stater) and smaller change money.

Kizik coins circulated in the basins of the present Marmara, Aegean and Black Seas, as well as in Thrace and Macedonia. According to historical information, the Cyzik stater was used for mutual settlements by the inhabitants of Olbia. Today, these coins have become the property of antiquities seekers taking part in archaeological research in the southern part of Ukraine.

Birth of the silver drachma

Drakhma, minted from silver, according to some historians, appeared at the beginning of the nineteenth century, during the reign of Otto the First. The name of the coin, according to the source, comes from the Greek word "handful" (this is how the word "drachma" is translated into Russian). The concept of "handful" arose back in those days when the drachma was exchanged for six metal rods.

The first mention of the silver drachma dates back to the middle of the sixth century BC. This Greek coin was used as a monetary unit by the inhabitants of Athens, as well as by the peoples who inhabited the territory of the modern Mediterranean.

Reborn from the Ashes

According to one of the versions, the prototype of modern Greek coins was a small change money,which was called a mite. It was minted in 1828. On one side, the mite was decorated with the image of a Phoenix burning itself and reborn from its own ashes (according to legend, the Phoenix self-immolation occurred once every five hundred years), near which a cross is clearly visible.

The Greeks, who lived in the early nineteenth century, identified this bird with Christian symbols of holiness and eternal life, and their descendants - with the revival of Greece, throwing off the shackles of the Turkish invaders.