Numismatics

Numismatics is the study or collection of currency, including coins, tokens, paper money, medals, and related objects.

Specialists, known as numismatists, are often characterized as students or collectors of coins, but the discipline also includes the broader study of money and other means of payment used to resolve debts and exchange goods.

The earliest forms of money used by people are categorised by collectors as "odd and curious",[1] but the use of other goods in barter exchange is excluded, even where used as a circulating currency (e.g., cigarettes or instant noodles in prison).

[dubious – discuss] Many objects have been used for centuries, such as cowry shells, precious metals, cocoa beans, large stones, and gems.

[10] Petrarch, who wrote in a letter that he was often approached by vine diggers with old coins asking him to buy or to identify the ruler, is credited as the first Renaissance collector.

In the United States, the US Mint established a coin cabinet in 1838 when chief coiner Adam Eckfeldt donated his personal collection.

The focus of modern numismatics frequently lies in the research of production and use of money in historical contexts using mint or other records in order to determine the relative rarity of the coins they study.

Varieties, mint-made errors, the results of progressive die wear, mintage figures, and even the sociopolitical context of coin mintings are also matters of interest.

Exonumia (UK English: Paranumismatica)[16] is the study of coin-like objects such as token coins and medals, and other items used in place of legal currency or for commemoration.

At the same time, some developed countries such as the United States, Germany, and France began publishing their respective national catalogs of paper money, which represented major points of reference literature.