The earliest recorded reference to coins as currency can be traced to the 6^th or 5^th Century BCE in the kingdom of Lydia, now part of modern-day Turkey. They were roughly shaped, a bit like a bean, but did carry a royal symbol to give them the sense of authority we would be familiar with today.

It is believed that coins didn’t really appear on our British Isles until a few hundred years later, introduced by traders from Northern France around the 2^nd Century BCE. The first coins minted here were Potins in around the 1^st Century BCE, coins cast from an alloy of copper, zinc and lead and featuring a rough design of a bull on one side and a bust of Apollo on the other.

Within a few years, tribes across Briton were casting their own gold and silver coins. Known as Staters, they featured elaborate artistic designs of different shapes and forms to represent each tribe.

When the Romans invaded in the 1^st Century CE, they bought with them their own coinage which quickly dominated and replaced the Iron Age Celtic coins. This remained the status quo until the Romans left in the 5^th Century and took their coins with them. Rather than replacing them with a new coinage, Britons instead went back to the ancient system of bartering, and coins didn’t really come back into regular use until the Anglo-Saxon period.

From the 7^th Century until the mid-17^th Century coins were struck at a number of mints across the British Isles from various precious metals such as gold, silver and bronze and in different shapes and sizes to cover different levels of trade. These ‘hammered’ coins were quite rough in shape and form but over time developed more sophisticated and beautiful designs.

By the late 13^th Century British coin production had been centralised into one mint, now based within the secure walls of the Tower of London. It was a cramped space, and by the end of the 17^th Century, the process was becoming more mechanised, greatly improving the appearance and consistency of our coins, making them more reliable and harder to counterfeit. But this process also demanded more space, so The Royal Mint was moved to a dedicated facility on nearby Tower Hill where production began in 1812, just in time for the Great Recoinage of 1816. This marked the beginning of the industrialisation of coin production, with huge new steam-powered presses able to strike much more elaborate designs to more exact specifications, and in much greater quantities.

It is from this point that coins really began to evolve into those we carry, spend, admire, collect and love today. The Royal Mint remained at Tower Hill throughout the rise and fall of the British Empire under Queen Victoria, the devastation of the Great War, the terrible Blitz of World War Two, and on through the recovery years of the mid-20th Century.

Then, in the early 1970s, came the greatest change to our currency of the modern era. Monday 15^th February 1971 was Decimalisation Day when the historic system of 12 pence to a shilling was replaced by 100 pence in the pound. Shillings, farthings and our favourite thru’penny bit were replaced by new coins ranging from the 50 new pence down to the tiny halfpenny.

Since then, coins have gone on to replace lower denomination banknotes with the introduction of the £1 and £2 coins. Most recently, the age-old problem of counterfeiting led the United Kingdom to develop and release the world’s most secure coin, the new £1 coin launched in 2015. In a lovely nod to the great traditions of our British coin heritage, this modern wonder of cutting-edge security techniques took on a familiar form; 12-sided in shape, with a silver-coloured centre and golden outer edge, just like the nation’s favourite thru’penny bit.

Today it is fair to say that coins are becoming less a part of our everyday lives, replaced by the convenience of card payments and online shopping. But it is also true to say that this remains a golden age of coin design and production, with the world’s great designers able to tell fascinating stories through beautiful, intricate designs that can then be brought to life in miniature form using modern production innovations such as high-relief, Proof finish and colour printing.

As this brief history of coins shows us, coins are practically eternal. Those first coins from Lydia, and Roman coins from ancient Britain, are still being unearthed to this day, surviving to tell the stories of the people who made, carried and traded them long after their clothing, pottery and buildings have crumbled to dust and ruin.

And this remains true of the coins that are designed, minted and collected today; they help us discover and celebrate the great stories, characters, events and anniversaries of ancient and modern history. And they will survive and endure to fascinate and enthral us all for generations to come.