From today's news - A coin collection buried for 50 years now in auction

https://edition.cnn.com/2025/03/27/style/buried-coin-collection-auction-scli-intl/index.html

This is among today's headlines at CNN website.

And whoever took the photos in the auction house did a great job, the photos are great.

Fortunately the heirs of the original owner of the hoard managed to recover it back after buried, unlike many others in Greece, Rome, and the rest of the world from the ancient times till today. That itself is a good news. But selling it instead of keeping in the family… sad, to say the least.

Other thing that got in my head is: are these coins featured in the article in our catalog?

Apparently, no, for two of them. For the third, I only found a pattern coin (N#282658 ), is the coin in auction indeed a pattern?

And for the one at the opening, that's also on CNN's first page, I didn't found any 100 ducat coin in our catalog (except one modern exonumia), but there's a 40 ducat version of it here N#266750 .

Giobruno

Other thing that got in my head is: are these coins featured in the article in our catalog?

Apparently, no, for two of them. For the third, I only found a pattern coin (N#282658 ), is the coin in auction indeed a pattern?

 

You are right, the Numista catalogue does not feature the 1777 George III five guinea piece, Spink ref 3723A, which is indeed also a pattern.

Wow! 

Always nice when an old collection comes up. It should be a good set of auctions.

Bronze Age coins, interesting given coins were invented in the Iron Age.

Moneytane

Bronze Age coins, interesting given coins were invented in the Iron Age.

Holy crap, my bad.

Really didn't worded well that part.

Changed that part now, I think “ancient times” does it better.

And thanks for pointing it.

Well, that’s only a theory. There is no proof that they didn’t cast coins in the Bronze Age.

 The Bronze Age is actually a pretty loose term. There were Stone Age people who cast gold jewelry and and some copper. There were Bronze Age people that had some iron but never developed any sizable iron industry. But they knew about small bits of iron, like  surface chunks, and meteorites. People in different places in the world discovered different metals at different times, there is no hard and fast date for any of that.
 

Who actually can say when coins were invented… 

redsmithstudios Who actually can say when coins were invented… 

To be honest, I've just forgot if 600 BC was in bronze or iron age, and since it was near midnight I was too lazy to google it.

And also, came to my head other hoards, like jewels or metalwork.

Anyway, now I think that “ancient times” works better. But I wouldn't have noticed the mistake if Moneytane didn't appeared here.

And when I was writing, my focus was on the part where the coins photographed for the article aren't appearing on our catalog.

Edit: If I had waited till morning, the article could have disappeared from the first page. And it has indeed.

The Lydian coins dated to 650BC at earliest, were clearly Iron Age in that part of the world. Iron Age started in the Near East/Mediterranean region after the Bronze Age collapse of around 1150BC.

Although the world changed through ages at different times, that part of the world was the most advanced at the time. And cultures as primitive as the Osteodonterkeratic (Too basic to even make stone tools) could use coins. The most basic cultures like Bushmen and Aborigines of Australia are at a Paleolithic level of development (20,000BC), yet it is suspected that Tasmanian aborigines (Who were believed to possibly be at a pre erecticine/australopithecus level of development), who died out around 1876 had only control of fire and could not make stone tools - yet it was known coins had made their way into Tasmania around 1805. Also my Maori people who were at a Neolithic (North Island) and Mesolithic level (South Island hunta gatherings) of development were using coins from 1800 too.

Good points about Bronze Age coins as Chinese bronze knives and panels were possibly minted as far back as 700BC, and China did not become Iron Age fully until around 450BC. But people dispute is these Bronze knive coins were a coin or just token and the shu coins (Round things with holes) only started around 250BC well into the Iron Age.

The other debate was gold ingots with heiroglyphic markings on them from Egypt and dating to the 13th century BC in the Ramessid dynasty - some may call coins. Yet as advanced as New Kingdom Egypt was, the usage of Iron eleuded them and they had to settle for a Bronze Age level of metallurgy (Kind of like having to settle for a B+ instead of an A). Iron only became commonplace a couple of hundred years later around 1000BC.

Generally from what I read - iron was used as a manuport (Carried around and battered into shape) from the Neolithic era, but smelting it into metal only started around 1200BC in Anatolia with the Hittites and reachd Egypt, rest of Turkey and southern Greece by 1000BC. By 800 BC it covered Mesopotamia, Persia, most of the Balkans and Italy. The 8th century BC saw it cover all of the European continent to England and the Rhine River. By 500BC it reached China, by the Time of Christ it had reached most of Scandinavia, East Asia, southern Asia (Dong Son - Vietnam and Srivijaya). Even between 500BC and 400AD Iron semlting spread through Africa with the Bantu and worked iron has been found in South Africa dating back to 400AD. But Iron never reached the Americas, Australia or past the Wallace Line (Sulawesi). The Mesoamericans had great silver and goldf items, but they never learnt how to smelt alloys and thus were pre Bronze Age, placing them at the Chalcolithic level (Copper Age) level, none used any coinages and the first American coins were minted by the Spanish in 1535.

Scale of development metals with tools.

Osteodonterkeratic - Usage of Bone, Shell and natural materials only, no stone tool shaping, random rocks could be picked up and thrown or bashed on something - but no deliberate manufacture. Like throwing sticks and clubs. - Users - Apes, Australopithecus and earlier hominids like Ardipithecus and Proconsul.

Manuportic - Deliberate carrying and shaping of rocks to sites, like bashing a rock on  a bone and harvesting them - Australopithecus, Chimps, Paranthopus

Stone Age - Oldowan - Basic usage of rocks as choppers, bashing two stones - Homo Habilis and possibly Paranthropus, Tasmanians, basic stick spears

Acheulian - Handaxes - better shaping, multi use tools - Homo Erectus and Archaic Homo Sapiens, throwing spears, bolas

Mousterian - Scrapers, Axes, crude blade technology associated with Neanderthals and Denisovans, some more primitive Australian aborigines, hafted spears

Aurignacian to Magdalenian - Modern humans, complex tools, all flakes, use of many rocks like chert, flint and obsidian, sewing needles, scrapers, flakes and blades - Modern day hunter gatheries like Mbuti pygmies, Bushmen, Aborigines, Inuit. Palelothic level.

Mesolithic - Complex scrapers and blades, microliths, complex needles, spears, woodworking and blades - Maori, basic Africans, Tierra del Fuegans.

Neolithic - Polished stone tools like adzes, flint scrapers and choppers, blades, more microliths, farming, basic pottery - Many Amazonian and New Guinean tribes, native South sea Islanders, more advanced Maori.

Chalcolithic - Copper Age - like neolithic, better pottery - usage of copper, gold silver - able to smelt metals with low melting points, no alloys though - Maya, Aztec, Incas, Chavin, Adena etc - Otzi is from the copper age.

Bronze Age - Usage and smelting of Bronze (Alloy of Tin and Copper), usage of many metals, fine work - however still heavily using stone tools, especially flint, metal was around but it was rare and prestigous and stone and natural materials mostly used.

Iron Age - Usage and smelting of Iron, IRON was an expensive and hard to make metal due to its high melting point and complex bellows/smelter needed. Most everyday usage was with Bronze and easier metals. Stone tools fell out of usage. Basic coinage was possible with hammering mostly pure or near pure lumps of gold, silver and copper.

Steel age - Romans, Chinese and Japanese around early centuries AD, late BC added coke to iron, creating a harder steel which was perfect for better fighting and stronger materials. Coins still hammered, but more complex alloys like billon and mixxed silver could be made.

Cast iron/Stainless steel - modern technology and metallurgy. Invention of the Screw Press c.1550 and modern steam engine produced coins (late 1700s), widespread adoption of machine made/industrial coinage around 1850.

Wow. Just wow.

Did not expect such a lesson. Had previously heard of only half of the things there.

Hat off to you.

Are you a teacher? If not, you could be.

Certainly it took a lot of time to organize your thoughts in the above posts.

I may have rushed a little in my post because I wanted to share the news while the story was fresh at head, as I could forget it in the morning (and at next morning the headlines were completely different).

Please forgive my unsuccessful attempt to illustrate how fortunate it was to be able to recover the lost hoard of the family.

How many coin hoards were successfully recovered by their original owners? 10%?

A good night to all.

(But for Moneytane it's already morning since he lives at the other side of the world - almost literally)

Just an update I want to share:

That story appeared today in a news site from my country, with two additional photos that didn't appear back then at CNN.

Won't link it here because they gave a link to a source in english: https://www.numismaticnews.net/the-traveller-collection-set-for-record-breaking-auction

First additional coin is N#16738 .

It is said to be one of the most beautiful coins ever made, and I can understand why.

The second one is an Australian 1 ounce gold bullion coin.

It's not on our catalog, but we have the two ounce version (N#278089 ).

That 1 ounce Australian coin is a dream coin! How cool is that!