Hammered Gold Coins

Gold has always appealed to man - right from the shiny nuggets dug from the ground or sieved from a stream the lust for gold has brought out both the good and the bad sides of mankind.

Greek Hammered Gold Coins are still being found today and large numbers of Roman Gold coins are appearing regularly from the eastern side of Europe.

If you are purchasing roman gold coins you should be aware that some from Eastern Europe are from undeclared hoards and you could get into trouble with purchasing these.

This is perhaps not surprising as inhabitants of countries tend to hide their gold when invaded !

Europe is a typical example where almost all Europeans kept a small hoard of gold buried somewhere near their house.

It would seem that the less the populace trust their government,the more they hoard gold. Gold has a couple of great advantages - pretty much everyone know the value of the more common gold coins such as the Krugerrand and the American Eagle so a pocketful of those would buy your way out of many problems.

In Medieval times Kings would own mints that would make gold coins that were easily portable and often used to pay ransoms or buy land. These were usually quite large coins and it was a common practice to snip a tiny piece off every gold or silver coin that passed though your hands and then these were melted down and sold !

Because this debased the coins, the kings got worried and made clipping a capital offence (hanging !)

However the practice kept on even up to the 17th century when huge amounts of gold were being moved from South America by the Spanish and intercepted by British pirates and privateers (a privateer was usually a pirate with a licence from the crown and would split his loot with the King or the local governor).

The Spanish had a number of large gold coins but these were hard to change so a common practice was to cut the gold coin in half or even smaller pieces where eight would make up a whole coin. Hence Pieces of eight. Very popular with pirates and treasure hunters..

Medieval Kings and Queens made even bigger coins sometimes and these went by a number of names but the sizes were pretty much the same from country to country. This meant that coins cold be easily used from France To Spain or Netherlands to Britain because the amount of gold was instantly recognisable.

The value of medieval coins varies according to the quantity available but more so by their condition.

Collectors of medieval Hammerd Gold Coins seek almost uncirculated condition and these are very rare. Accordingly they fetch a very high premium and some of these can be seen at <a href=http://www.hammeredgoldcoins.info>Hammered Gold Coins</a>

Then came the modern coin presses and a bright spark invented milling the coin edges withfine lines and this prevented the practice of clipping.

In the 19th Century gold was found in California ,Australia and in South Africa and a Gold Rush began.

It seemed that gold fever had hit Victorians with a vengeance..Gold mining camps very similar to those in 'Deadwood' sprang up and that series really is very lifelike.

Vengeance events were commonplace and the strong triumphed over the honest miners. Some gold coins from that era survive and these are usually private tokens which were hammered by miners themselves in home made coin dies and these are very collectible.

Cecil Rhodes managed to commandeer most of the Gold in Southern Africa and some of those gold mines are still working today.

Today Gold coins are as valued as they have always been - especially when banks are proving unreliable and investors seek stability for their wealth.

Gold is as it always has been a refuge for that wealth and it looks like this will be commonplace for years to come.