A coin is a small, round piece of metal or plastic used as a medium of exchange or legal tender. They are standardized in weight, produced in large quantities at a mint in order to facilitate trade, they are most issued by a government. Coins have images, numerals, or text on them. Coins are metal or an alloy, or sometimes made of manmade materials, they are disc shaped. Coins made of valuable metal are stored in large quantities as bullion coins. Other coins are used as money in everyday transactions; the highest value coin in circulation is worth less than the lowest-value note. In the last hundred years, the face value of circulation coins has been lower than the value of the metal they contain, for example due to inflation. If the difference becomes significant, the issuing authority may decide to withdraw these coins from circulation issuing new equivalents with a different composition, or the public may decide to melt the coins down or hoard them. Exceptions to the rule of face value being higher than content value occur for some bullion coins made of copper, silver, or gold, intended for collectors or investors in precious metals.

Examples of modern gold collector/investor coins include the British sovereign minted by the United Kingdom, the American Gold Eagle minted by the United States, the Canadian Gold Maple Leaf minted by Canada, the Krugerrand, minted by South Africa. While the Eagle, Maple Leaf, Sovereign coins have nominal face values, the Krugerrand does not. A great quantity of coinage metals and other materials have been used to produce coins for circulation and metal investment: bullion coins serve as more convenient stores of assured metal quantity and purity than other bullion. Metal ingots, silver bullion or unmarked bars were in use for exchange among many of the civilizations that mastered metallurgy; the weight and purity of bullion would be the key determinant of value. In the Achaemenid Empire in the early 6th century BCE, coinage was yet unknown, barter and to some extent silver bullion was used instead for trade; the practice of using silver bars for currency seems to have been current in Central Asia from the 6th century BCE.

Coins were an evolution of "currency" systems of the Late Bronze Age, where standard-sized ingots, tokens such as knife money, were used to store and transfer value. In the late Chinese Bronze Age, standardized cast tokens were made, such as those discovered in a tomb near Anyang; these were replicas in bronze of earlier Chinese currency, cowrie shells, so they were named Bronze Shell. The earliest coins are associated with Iron Age Anatolia of the late 7th century BCE, with the kingdom of Lydia. Early electrum coins were not standardized in weight, in their earliest stage may have been ritual objects, such as badges or medals, issued by priests; the unpredictability of the composition of occurring electrum implied that it had a variable value, which hampered its development. Most of the early Lydian coins include no writing, only an image of a symbolic animal. Therefore, the dating of these coins relies on archaeological evidence, with the most cited evidence coming from excavations at the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus called the Ephesian Artemision, site of the earliest known deposit of electrum coins.

Because the oldest lion head "coins" were discovered in that temple, they do not appear to have been used in commerce, these objects may not have been coins but badges or medals issued by the priests of that temple. Anatolian Artemis was the Πὀτνια Θηρῶν, it took some time before ancient coins were used for trade. The smallest-denomination electrum coins worth about a day's subsistence, would have been too valuable for buying a loaf of bread. Maybe the first coins to be used for retailing on a large-scale basis were small silver fractions, Ancient Greek coinage minted by the Ionian Greeks in the late sixth century BCE. In contrast Herodotus mentioned the innovation made by the Lydians: "So far as we have any knowledge, they were the first people to introduce the use of gold and silver coins, the first who sold goods by retail" Many early Lydian and Greek coins were minted under the authority of private individuals and are thus more akin to tokens or badges than to modern coins, though due to their numbers it is evident that some were official state issues.

The earliest inscribed coins are those of Phanes, dated to 625–600 BC from Ephesus in Ionia, with the legend ΦΑΝΕΟΣ ΕΜΙ ΣΗΜΑ, or just bearing the name ΦΑΝΕΟΣ. The first electrum coins issued by a monarch are those minted by king Alyattes of Lydia, for which reason this king is sometimes mentioned as the originator of coinage; the successor of Alyattes, king Croesus, became associated with great wealth in Greek historiography. He is credited with issuing the Croeseid, the first true gold coins with a standardized purity for general circulation, and the world's first bimetallic monetary system circa 550 BCE. Coins spread in the 6th and 5th centuries BCE, leading to the development of Ancient Greek coinage and Achaemenid c

Alive'05 is a live album by the alternative rock band Local H. It was released on September 2005 on Cleopatra Records, it is the first official live album released by the band. The album is compiled from a couple live shows, one of, on September 17, 2004 in Chicago at The Metro; the last track on the album is a studio recording of a cover of "Toxic" performed by Britney Spears. The CD contains 4 fan made music videos, two for "Cooler Heads" and one each for "No Fun" and "California Songs"; the album is known by other names. The front cover says Local H Comes Alive!—a take on Frampton Comes Alive!, the spine says "LOCAL H – LIVE" on one side and "LOCAL H – DEAD" on the other, the inside image says Alive'05, what the band calls the album. On July 16, 2007 it received an Australian release doubled with Whatever Happened to P. J. Soles? All songs by Local H unless otherwise noted. "Everyone Alive" – 4:22 "Bound for the Floor – 3:34 "Lovey Dovey – 2:36 "Heaven on the Way Down – 2:29 "Hands on the Bible – 4:21 "Manipulator – 4:16 "All the Kids Are Right – 3:21 "All-Right – 3:44 "Hey, Rita – 5:00 "Deep Cut – 2:05 "President Forever – 3:34 "How's the Weather Down There?

– 3:30 "Fritz's Corner – 3:35 "Creature Comforted – 3:50 "No Problem – 6:23 "California Songs – 4:02 "Hi-Fiving MF – 7:54 "Toxic" – 5:54 Brian St. Clair – drums Scott Lucas – vocals, bass Gabe Rodriguez – tambourine, backing vocals on track 7, 8, & 13

The Private of the Buffs is a ballad by Sir Francis Hastings Doyle describing the execution of a British infantryman by Chinese soldiers in 1860. During the Second Opium War, an Anglo-French expedition landed in China and marched towards Peking in order to force the compliance of the Treaty of Tientsin. On 13 August 1860, during the attack on the Taku Forts -- 大沽炮台, in Chinese, or dàgū pàotái -- Chinese troops captured two British soldiers and a group of coolies; the details of the subsequent events are not well-recorded, but according to reports in The Times, one Private John Moyse, of the 3rd Regiment refused to kowtow to his captors. He had "declared he would not prostrate himself before any Chinaman alive," and as a result, he was summarily executed; the poem refers to Moyse as a young Kentish farmboy. However, the poem was written on the strength of newspaper reports, it is that Doyle was unaware of the discrepancies. Despite the report in The Times, there is speculation concerning whether the incident took place as was popularly supposed.

Garnet Wolseley, present at the taking of the Taku forts, insisted that "The man belonging to the Buffs was either killed, or'died of drink,' as the Chinese say." The source of the information -- a soldier in the 44th Regiment -- was, according to Wolseley, not reliable. "His mind, seemed to be unbalanced, as in addition to the untruths he told, he talked utter nonsense about what he pretended he had overheard his captors say."D. F. Rennie, a doctor with the British troops denied that the incident took place; the Manchester Times reprinted Rennie's account on December 2, 1865, with the conclusion Thus, it would seem that this unfortunate man, through the romancing propensities of his comrade of the 44th, the ready ear for'sensationalism of the Times correspondent, was believed by the deluded British public to have been decapitated because he would not kow-tow to Sang-ko-lin-sin, died without seeing that personage at all." Works related to The Private of the Buffs at Wikisource