The Evolution Of Gold Coins Throughout History

In the past, people used gold coins to purchase goods and services since gold was considered as a valuable commodity. Prior to this time, people traded goods with other goods because currency has not been developed. As the civilization developed, people started to understand the value of currency and the practicability of money as an instrument for trading. Gold coins started becoming popular afterwards.

Lydian King, Croesus, was the first to introduce gold coins around 643-630 B.C. During that time, electrum that occurs naturally in the Lydia was used. It was a pale yellow mixture of silver and gold. At that time, people still do not have knowledge on how to separate gold and silver. Therefore, the first gold coins were in fact a combination of silver and gold.

The people of Lydia learned to separate gold from silver in 560 B.C. and as a result, the first real gold coins were produced. At the same time, along with manufacturing gold coins, the Lydians also produced silver coins. As today, silver coins were considered to have lesser value than gold coins. Therefore, most rich people used gold, while silver was popular among the working class.

The history continued to 546 B.C. when King Croeseus captured Persian army. The Persians walked through the kingdom of Lydia and they saw the gold coins. The Persians were amazed with the coins and they decided to learn how to mint gold coins as well. The Persians always considered gold as a precious commodity so not long after, they started using gold coins for trading.

In the old times, Persia was one of the most progressive nations in the world. As a result, the use of gold coins became popular to many areas around the world. They played as an important tool in the area of commerce for several centuries. Everywhere, people used gold coins to obtain goods and services. If you watch a movie where pirates keep treasure chests choked with gold coins, this was not an impossible scenario in the past.

Gold coins were used as a currency until 1933. Around this time, countries around the world considered gold coins were too expensive to be used as a part of their currencies. Afterwards, the production of gold coins for general circulation purpose was brought to an end. Nowadays, some countries still use gold-colored coins, even though those coins do not contain gold anymore.

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