1.
Norwegian krone
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The krone, plural kroner, is the currency of Norway and its dependent territories. It is subdivided into 100 øre, which exist only electronically since 2012, the name translates into English as crown. The krone was the thirteenth most traded currency in the world by value in April 2010, the krone was introduced in 1875, replacing the Norwegian speciedaler/spesidaler at a rate of 4 kroner =1 speciedaler. In doing so, Norway joined the Scandinavian Monetary Union, which had established in 1873. After its dissolution, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden all decided to keep the names of their respective, within the Scandinavian Monetary Union, the krone was on a gold standard of 2,480 kroner =1 kilogram of pure gold. This gold standard was restored between 1916 and 1920 and again in 1928 and it was suspended permanently in 1931, when a peg to the British pound of 19.9 kroner =1 pound was established. In 1939, Norway pegged the krone temporarily to the U. S. dollar at a rate of 4.4 kroner =1 dollar, nonetheless, Norway would continue to hold the Kingdoms gold reserves. During the German occupation in the Second World War, the krone was initially pegged to the Reichsmark at a rate of 1 krone =0.6 Reichsmark, after the war, a rate of 20 kroner =1 pound was established. The rate to the pound was maintained in 1949, when the pound devalued relative to the U. S. dollar, in 1875, coins were introduced in denominations of 10 and 50 øre and 1 and 10 kroner. These coins also bore the denomination in the currency, as 3,15. Between 1875 and 1878, the new coinage was introduced in full, in denominations of 1,2,5,10,25, and 50 øre and 1,2, and 10 kroner. The 1,2, and 5 øre were struck in bronze, the 10,25, and 50 øre and 1 and 2 kroner, in silver, the last gold coins were issued in 1910, silver was replaced by cupro-nickel from 1920. Between 1917 and 1921, iron replaced bronze. 1917 also saw the last issuance of 2 kroner coins, during the German occupation in the Second World War, zinc was used in place of cupro-nickel in 10,25, and 50 øre coins, and production of the 1 krone piece was suspended. In 1963,5 kroner coins were introduced, production of 1 and 2 øre coins ceased in 1972. The following year, the size of the 5 øre coin was reduced, production of the denomination ceased in 1982, ten-kroner coins were introduced in 1983. In 1992, the last 10 øre coins were minted, between 1994 and 1998, a new coinage was introduced, consisting of 50 øre,1,5,10, and 20 kroner. These are the coins which are currently legal tender, with the exception of the 50-øre coin which was withdrawn on 1 May 2012
2.
Norway
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The Antarctic Peter I Island and the sub-Antarctic Bouvet Island are dependent territories and thus not considered part of the Kingdom. Norway also lays claim to a section of Antarctica known as Queen Maud Land, until 1814, the kingdom included the Faroe Islands, Greenland, and Iceland. It also included Isle of Man until 1266, Shetland and Orkney until 1468, Norway has a total area of 385,252 square kilometres and a population of 5,258,317. The country shares a long border with Sweden. Norway is bordered by Finland and Russia to the north-east, Norway has an extensive coastline, facing the North Atlantic Ocean and the Barents Sea. King Harald V of the Dano-German House of Glücksburg is the current King of Norway, erna Solberg became Prime Minister in 2013, replacing Jens Stoltenberg. A constitutional monarchy, Norway divides state power between the Parliament, the Cabinet and the Supreme Court, as determined by the 1814 Constitution, the kingdom is established as a merger of several petty kingdoms. By the traditional count from the year 872, the kingdom has existed continuously for 1,144 years, Norway has both administrative and political subdivisions on two levels, counties and municipalities. The Sámi people have an amount of self-determination and influence over traditional territories through the Sámi Parliament. Norway maintains close ties with the European Union and the United States, the country maintains a combination of market economy and a Nordic welfare model with universal health care and a comprehensive social security system. Norway has extensive reserves of petroleum, natural gas, minerals, lumber, seafood, the petroleum industry accounts for around a quarter of the countrys gross domestic product. On a per-capita basis, Norway is the worlds largest producer of oil, the country has the fourth-highest per capita income in the world on the World Bank and IMF lists. On the CIAs GDP per capita list which includes territories and some regions, from 2001 to 2006, and then again from 2009 to 2017, Norway had the highest Human Development Index ranking in the world. It also has the highest inequality-adjusted ranking, Norway ranks first on the World Happiness Report, the OECD Better Life Index, the Index of Public Integrity and the Democracy Index. Norway has two names, Noreg in Nynorsk and Norge in Bokmål. The name Norway comes from the Old English word Norðrveg mentioned in 880, meaning way or way leading to the north. In contrasting with suðrvegar southern way for Germany, and austrvegr eastern way for the Baltic, the Anglo-Saxon of Britain also referred to the kingdom of Norway in 880 as Norðmanna land. This was the area of Harald Fairhair, the first king of Norway, and because of him
3.
Scandinavian Monetary Union
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The Scandinavian Monetary Union was a monetary union formed by Denmark and Sweden on 5 May 1873, by fixing their currencies against gold at par to each other. An equal valued krone/krona of the union replaced the three legacy currencies at the rate of 1 krone/krona = 1⁄2 Danish rigsdaler = 1⁄4 Norwegian speciedaler =1 Swedish riksdaler. The monetary union was one of the few results of the Scandinavian political movement of the 19th century. The union provided fixed exchange rates and stability in monetary terms, upon acceding to the union, Sweden had the name of its currency changed from Riksdaler Riksmynt to Swedish krona. The word krone/krona literally means crown, and the differences in spelling of the name represent the differences between the North Germanic languages, the political union between Sweden and Norway was dissolved in 1905, but this did not affect the basis for co-operation in the monetary union. It was instead the outbreak of World War I in 1914 that brought an end to the monetary union, Sweden abandoned the tie to gold on 2 August 1914, and without a fixed exchange rate the free circulation came to an end. All three countries use the same currencies as during the monetary union, but they lost their peg, one to one. The Icelandic króna is a derivative of the Danish krone, established after Iceland was elevated to a kingdom in union with Denmark in 1918. Iceland cut its ties to Denmark in 1944 and became a republic, the Scandinavian Monetary Union was inspired by the Latin Monetary Union, established in 1865. The Scandinavian currency union 1875–1914. in Jaime Reis, ed. International Monetary Systems in Historical Perspective, the impact of the Scandinavian Monetary Union on financial market integration
4.
Gold standard
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A gold standard is a monetary system in which the standard economic unit of account is based on a fixed quantity of gold. Three types can be distinguished, specie, bullion, and exchange, the gold bullion standard is a system in which gold coins do not circulate, but the authorities agree to sell gold bullion on demand at a fixed price in exchange for the circulating currency. The gold exchange standard usually does not involve the circulation of gold coins. This creates a de facto standard, where the value of the means of exchange has a fixed external value in terms of gold that is independent of the inherent value of the means of exchange itself. Most nations abandoned the standard as the basis of their monetary systems at some point in the 20th century. An estimated total of 174,100 tonnes of gold have been mined in human history and this is roughly equivalent to 5.6 billion troy ounces or, in terms of volume, about 9,261 cubic metres, or a cube 21 metres on a side. There are varying estimates of the volume of gold mined. One reason for the variance is that gold has been mined for thousands of years, another reason is that some nations are not particularly open about how much gold is being mined. In addition, it is difficult to account for the output in illegal mining activities. World production for 2011 was at 2,700 tonnes, since the 1950s, annual gold output growth has approximately kept pace with world population growth of around 2x, although far less than world economic growth of some 8x, or some 4x since 1980. The gold specie standard arose from the acceptance of gold as currency. Various commodities have been used as money, typically, the one that loses the least value over time becomes the accepted form, the use of gold as money began thousands of years ago in Asia Minor. During the early and high Middle Ages, the Byzantine gold solidus, commonly known as the bezant, was used widely throughout Europe, however, as the Byzantine Empires economic influence declined, so too did the use of the bezant. In its place, European territories chose silver as its currency over gold, Silver pennies based on the Roman denarius became the staple coin of Mercia in Great Britain around the time of King Offa, circa CE 757–796. Similar coins, including Italian denari, French deniers, and Spanish dineros circulated in Europe, Spanish explorers discovered silver deposits in Mexico in 1522 and at Potosí in Bolivia in 1545. International trade came to depend on such as the Spanish dollar, the Maria Theresa thaler, and later. In modern times, the British West Indies was one of the first regions to adopt a gold specie standard, following Queen Annes proclamation of 1704, the British West Indies gold standard was a de facto gold standard based on the Spanish gold doubloon. A formal gold specie standard was first established in 1821, when Britain adopted it following the introduction of the sovereign by the new Royal Mint at Tower Hill in 1816
5.
Gold holdings of Norway
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The gold reserves of Norway were the physical reserves of gold of the Kingdom of Norway. In 2004, the gold reserves consisted of approximately 37 tonnes divided on 33.5 tonnes of bars and 3.5 tonnes of coins. In 2004, the Bank of Norway—the central bank issuing the Norwegian crown—excluded the gold from its reserves and sold all bars, except seven. In April 1940, when Norway was invaded by Germany, the reserves included 48.8 or 60 tonnes. During the morning hours of 9 April,818 boxes of 40 kilos each,685 boxes of 25 kilos each, and 39 barrels of 80 kilos each were brought out of Oslo parallel with the capital city being invaded. The gold was transported to the United Kingdom by the British Royal Navy and, in June and July, further to Montreal, later Ottawa, in Canada. Only a small portion, approximately 5,715 troy ounces, was kept in London, from 1940 to 1945, the gold reserves would fund both the exiled King and Government and the resistance movement. The gold that served as Norways forex reserves had been transported abroad before the invasion, the gold that was still in Norway as of 1940 served as gold standard reserves backing the Norwegian crown, and that gold was required by law to be stored within the Realm. After the 1940 transport, only an amount of gold remained in Oslo. In 1987, approximately 10 tonnes of coins were returned home from the Federal Reserve Bank. The gold bars remained in the United States, additionally, coins that were considered having no numismatic or historic value were remelted into bars. In 1988, Oslo Mynthandel, represented by Jan Olav Aamlid, purchased 100,484 coins from the gold reserves, in 2015, the Royal Canadian Mint commemorated the 1940 transport with a special issue of the Canadian Gold Maple Leaf. In the 2015 TV series Okkupert, the reserves are sent by express train to Sweden as Russia invades Norway. Flight of the Norwegian National Treasury Museum of Cultural History, The worlds biggest coin deal Global Gold News, Bank of Norway, Norges Bank har solgt deler av gullreserven, men beholder myntene fra gulltransporten 28 January 2004 Bank of Norway, FAQ - Gull 14 November 2007 GullNorge
6.
Gold reserve
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It has been estimated that all the gold mined by the end of 2011 totaled 171,300 tonnes. At a price of US$1,500 per troy ounce, reached on 12 April 2013, the total value of all gold ever mined would exceed US$8.2 trillion at that valuation. However, there are varying estimates of the amount of gold mined to date. Another reason is that countries are not particularly open about how much gold they are mining. In addition, it is difficult to account for gold output in illegal mining activities, during most of history, a nations gold reserves were considered its key financial asset and a major prize of war. A typical view was expressed in a memorandum by the British Chief of the Imperial General Staff from October 1939. The transport of many hundreds of tons of bullion presents a difficult problem, the ideal would of course be to have the gold transferred to this country or to the United States of America. The gold reserves of Belgium and Holland amount to about £70 million, note, H. M. Treasury has particularly requested that this information, which is highly confidential should in no circumstances be divulged. At present this gold is believed to be stored at Brussels and The Hague respectively, the Belgian government rushed to ship the gold to a safe place, Dakar, the capital of Senegal, then part of the French colonial empire. After the Germans occupied Belgium and France in 1940, they demanded the Belgian gold reserve back, in 1941, Vichy French officials arranged the transport of 4,944 boxes with 198 tons of gold to officials of the German Reichsbank. Since early 2011, the holdings of the IMF have been constant at 90.5 million troy ounces. The IMF regularly maintains statistics of national assets as reported by various countries and these data are used by the World Gold Council to periodically rank and report the gold holdings of countries and official organizations. On 17 July 2015, China announced that it increased its reserves by about 57 percent from 1,054 to 1,658 metric tons. The gold listed for each of the countries in the table may not be stored in the country listed. Gold leasing by central banks could place into doubt the reported gold holdings in the table below
7.
Banknote
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A banknote is a type of negotiable instrument known as a promissory note, made by a bank, payable to the bearer on demand. Banknotes were originally issued by banks, who were legally required to redeem the notes for legal tender when presented to the chief cashier of the originating bank. These commercial banknotes only traded at face value in the served by the issuing bank. Commercial banknotes have primarily been replaced by national banknotes issued by central banks, national banknotes are generally legal tender, meaning that medium of payment is allowed by law or recognized by a legal system to be valid for meeting a financial obligation. Historically, banks sought to ensure that they could always pay customers in coins when they presented banknotes for payment and this practice of backing notes with something of substance is the basis for the history of central banks backing their currencies in gold or silver. Today, most national currencies have no backing in precious metals or commodities and have value only by fiat, with the exception of non-circulating high-value or precious metal issues, coins are used for lower valued monetary units, while banknotes are used for higher values. The idea of using a durable light-weight substance as evidence of a promise to pay a bearer on demand originated in China during the Han Dynasty in 118 BC, the first known banknote was first developed in China during the Tang and Song dynasties, starting in the 7th century. Its roots were in merchant receipts of deposit during the Tang Dynasty, as merchants, during the Yuan Dynasty, banknotes were adopted by the Mongol Empire. In Europe, the concept of banknotes was first introduced during the 13th century by such as Marco Polo. Counterfeiting, the forgery of banknotes, is an inherent challenge in issuing currency and it is countered by anticounterfeiting measures in the printing of banknotes. Fighting the counterfeiting of banknotes and cheques has been a driver of security printing methods development in recent centuries. Paper currency first developed in the Tang Dynasty China during the 7th century, although true paper money did not appear until the 11th century, the usage of paper currency later spread throughout the Mongol Empire. European explorers like Marco Polo introduced the concept in Europe during the 13th century, napoleon issued paper banknotes in the early 1800s. Paper money originated in two forms, drafts, which are receipts for value held on account, and bills, the perception of banknotes as money has evolved over time. Originally, money was based on precious metals, Banknotes were seen as essentially an I. O. U. or promissory note, a promise to pay someone in precious metal on presentation. With the gradual removal of precious metals from the system, banknotes evolved to represent credit money. Notes or bills were referred to in 18th century novels and were often a key part of the plot such as a note drawn by Lord X for £100 which becomes due in 3 months time. Its roots were in merchant receipts of deposit during the Tang Dynasty, as merchants, before the use of paper, the Chinese used coins that were circular, with a rectangular hole in the middle
8.
Coin
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A coin is a small, flat, round piece of metal or plastic used primarily as a medium of exchange or legal tender. They are standardized in weight, and produced in quantities at a mint in order to facilitate trade. They are most often issued by a government, Coins are usually metal or alloy, or sometimes made of synthetic materials. Coins made of metal are stored in large quantities as bullion coins. Other coins are used as money in transactions, circulating alongside banknotes. Usually the highest value coin in circulation is less than the lowest-value note. In the last hundred years, the value of circulation coins has occasionally been lower than the value of the metal they contain. Exceptions to the rule of face value being higher than content value also occur for some bullion coins made of copper, silver, or gold, while the Eagle, Maple Leaf, and Sovereign coins have nominal face values, the Krugerrand does not. The first coins were developed independently in Iron Age Anatolia and Archaic Greece, India, Coins spread rapidly in the 6th and 5th centuries BCE, throughout Greece and Persia, and further to the Balkans. Standardized Roman currency was used throughout the Roman Empire, important Roman gold and silver coins were continued into the Middle Ages. Fiat money first arose in medieval China, with the paper money. Early paper money was introduced in Europe in the later Middle Ages, the penny was minted as a silver coin until the 17th century. The first circulating United States coins were cents, produced in 1793, Coins were an evolution of currency systems of the Late Bronze Age, where standard-sized ingots, and tokens such as knife money, were used to store and transfer value. In the late Chinese Bronze Age, standardized cast tokens were made and these were replicas in bronze of earlier Chinese currency, cowrie shells, so they were named Bronze Shell. According to Aristotle and Pollux, the first issuer of coins was Hermodike of Kyme The earliest coins are associated with Iron Age Anatolia. Early electrum coins were not standardized in weight, and in their earliest stage may have been ritual objects, such as badges or medals, issued by priests. The first Lydian coins were made of electrum, a naturally occurring alloy of silver, most of the early Lydian coins include no writing, only an image of a symbolic animal. Anatolian Artemis was the Πὀτνια Θηρῶν, whose symbol was the stag, a small percentage of early Lydian/Greek coins have a legend
9.
Gold
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Gold is a chemical element with symbol Au and atomic number 79. In its purest form, it is a bright, slightly yellow, dense, soft, malleable. Chemically, gold is a metal and a group 11 element. It is one of the least reactive chemical elements and is solid under standard conditions, Gold often occurs in free elemental form, as nuggets or grains, in rocks, in veins, and in alluvial deposits. It occurs in a solid solution series with the element silver and also naturally alloyed with copper. Less commonly, it occurs in minerals as gold compounds, often with tellurium, golds atomic number of 79 makes it one of the higher numbered, naturally occurring elements. It is thought to have produced in supernova nucleosynthesis, from the collision of neutron stars. Because the Earth was molten when it was formed, almost all of the present in the early Earth probably sank into the planetary core. Gold is resistant to most acids, though it does dissolve in aqua regia, a mixture of acid and hydrochloric acid. Gold also dissolves in solutions of cyanide, which are used in mining and electroplating. Gold dissolves in mercury, forming amalgam alloys, but this is not a chemical reaction, as a precious metal, gold has been used for coinage, jewelry, and other arts throughout recorded history. A total of 186,700 tonnes of gold is in existence above ground, the world consumption of new gold produced is about 50% in jewelry, 40% in investments, and 10% in industry. Gold is also used in infrared shielding, colored-glass production, gold leafing, certain gold salts are still used as anti-inflammatories in medicine. As of 2014, the worlds largest gold producer by far was China with 450 tonnes, Gold is cognate with similar words in many Germanic languages, deriving via Proto-Germanic *gulþą from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰelh₃-. The symbol Au is from the Latin, aurum, the Latin word for gold, the Proto-Indo-European ancestor of aurum was *h₂é-h₂us-o-, meaning glow. This word is derived from the root as *h₂éu̯sōs, the ancestor of the Latin word Aurora. This etymological relationship is presumably behind the frequent claim in scientific publications that aurum meant shining dawn, Gold is the most malleable of all metals, a single gram can be beaten into a sheet of 1 square meter, and an avoirdupois ounce into 300 square feet. Gold leaf can be thin enough to become semi-transparent
10.
Exonumia
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Exonumia are numismatic items other than coins and paper money. This includes Good For tokens, badges, counterstamped coins, elongated coins, encased coins, souvenir medallions, tags, wooden nickels and it is related to numismatics, and many coin collectors are also exonumists. Besides the above definition, others extend it to include non-coins which may or may not be legal tenders such as cheques, credit cards. These can also be considered notaphily or scripophily, the noun exonumia is derived from two classical roots, exo, meaning out-of in Greek, and nummus, meaning coin in Latin, thus, out-of-coins. Usually, the term exonumia is applied to objects in the United States. The words exonumist and exonumia were coined in July 1960 by Russell Rulau, an authority and author on the subject. Chronologically, in the United States many Exonumia items were used as currency when actual money was not easily available in the economy, a notable exception to this definition are Medals, which were generally not used as currency or exchange. See the for clarification section below for distinctions between various branches of exonumia, Tokens were used both to advertise and to facilitate commerce. Token authority Russell Rulau offers a definition for exonumia. For example, an advertising token may also be considered a medal, Good For tokens may also advertise. Counterstamped coins have been called “little billboards. ”Strictly, exonumia is anything not a governmental issue coin and this could almost mean anything coin-like. The English term Para-numismatica, or alongside currency, appears more limiting, hinting that tokens must have some sort of “value” or monetary usage, one definition of Para-numismatica is anything coin-like but not a coin. In America this is not the accepted usage, rulaus 1040 page tome, UNITED STATES TOKENS, 1700-1900 includes many tokens without any monetary value depicted on the token. While he included many items, some types of exonumia were not included just so the book would not get any bigger, the following groupings of categories are continually expanding. One way of parsing tokens is into three general categories, Has a ‘value, ’ facilitating commerce, such as Good For Something. Commemoration, remembrance, dedication, or the like, for person, place. Typically catalogs of tokens are organized by location, time period and/or type of item, historically the need for tokens grew out of the need for currency. In America some tokens legally circulated alongside or instead of currency up until recently, hard Times Tokens and Civil War Tokens each were the size of the contemporary cent
11.
Bracteate
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A bracteate is a flat, thin, single-sided gold medal worn as jewelry that was produced in Northern Europe predominantly during the Migration Period of the Germanic Iron Age. Gold bracteates commonly denote a type of jewelry, made mainly in the 5th to 7th century AD. Bead-rimmed and fitted with a loop, most were intended to be suspended by a string around the neck. The gold for the bracteates came from coins paid as peace money by the Roman Empire to their Northern Germanic neighbors, the motifs are commonly those of Germanic mythology and some are believed to be Germanic pagan icons giving protection or for divination. For this reason the bracteates are a target of iconographic studies by scholars interested in Germanic religion, several bracteates also feature runic alphabet inscriptions. Numerous Bracteates feature swastikas as a common motif, of these,135 bear Elder Futhark inscriptions which are often very short, the most notable inscriptions are found on the Seeland-II-C, Vadstena and Tjurkö bracteates. To these can be added the ca.270 E-bracteates, which belong to the Vendel Period and they were produced only on Gotland, and while the earlier bracteates all were made from gold, many E-bracteates were made from silver or bronze. This has been published in three volumes in German named Die Goldbrakteaten der Völkerwanderungszeit, a catalogue supplement is included in Heizmann & Axboe 2011. In some cantons of Switzerland, bracteate-like rappen, heller, the term bracteate for these coins was not used contemporarily. It was first used in the 17th century, the bracteates were usually called back regularly, about once or twice a year, and could be exchanged for new coins with a deduction. This system worked like a demurrage, People wouldnt hoard their coins, so this money was used more as a medium of exchange than for storing value. This increased the velocity of money and stimulated the economy, medieval silver bracteates may be large, but most are about 15 millimeters across and weigh about 1 gram. Sometimes the coins could be divided to pay smaller amounts, the town leagues were not interested in such a system and introduced in 1413 the Ewiger Pfennig without this decay. Pesch, Alexandra, Die Goldbrakteaten der Völkerwanderungszeit – Thema und Variation, hoards from the Roman Iron Age – Early Viking Age Evidence of the Jutes BBC list of Danish bracteates with runic inscriptions
12.
Modern gold dinar
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The modern Islamic gold dinar is a currency that aims to revive the historical gold dinar which was a leading coin of early Islam. They consist of minted coins, dinar, and silver coins. According to Islamic law, the Islamic dinar is a coin of gold weighing 72 grains of average barley. Modern determinations of weight range from 4.44 grams to 4.5 grams of gold, with the silver Dir-ham being created to the ratio of 7,10. Umar Ibn al-Khattab established the known standard relationship between them based on their weights,7 dinars must be equivalent to 10 dirhams. Per the historical law stated above, one dinar is 4.44 grams of pure gold, a smaller denomination, daniq, weighs one sixth as much. The value of coin is according to their weight and the market value of the two metals. The coins may be minted at fraction or multiples of their weights, the currency was introduced in Indonesia in the year 2000 by the Islamic Mint Nusantara. In 2011, IMN began the Mithqal correction by minting the dinar at 4.44 grams at a fineness of 999.9 ‰, in 2002, the prime minister of Malaysia proposed a gold dinar standard for use in the Islamic world. Kelantan was the first state in the country to introduce the dinar in 2006, in 2010, it issued new coins, including the dirham, minted in the United Arab Emirates by the World Islamic Mint. On 25 August 2013 Kelantanese government collected and distributed zakat from people in Kelantanese dinars, the state of Perak followed suit, minting its own dinar and dirham, which was launched in 2011. The gold dinar is weighted at 4.25 grams and is made of 21 karat gold, trinidadian scholar Imran Nazar Hosein has also been promoting the revival of Dinar usage, but has linked its use to Islamic eschatology. Most of the coins are issued privately and are not legal tender, in Malaysia, the state government of Kelantan allows their use in transactions while it is illegal according to federal law. Common uses of the gold dinar include, Buying merchandise from outlets, holding accounts, and making and receiving payments as with any other medium of exchange. Saving, as is done with any form of gold, paying zakat and mahr as established within Islamic Law
13.
Bullion coin
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A bullion coin is a coin struck from precious metal and kept as a store of value or an investment, rather than used in day-to-day commerce. Under United States law, coins that fail the last of these requirements are not coins at all, bullion coins are usually available in both gold and silver, with the exceptions of the Krugerrand and the Swiss Vreneli which are only available in gold. The American Eagle series is available in gold, silver and platinum, bullion coins are typically available in various weights. These are usually multiples or fractions of 1 troy ounce, bullion coins sell for a premium over the market price of the metal on the commodities exchanges. Reasons include their small size and the costs associated with manufacture, storage. The amount of the premium varies depending on the type and weight. The premium also is affected by prevailing demand, the ISO currency code for gold bullion is XAU. ISO4217 includes codes not only for currencies, but also for precious metals and certain other entities used in international finance, the European Commission publishes annually a list of gold coins which must be treated as investment gold coins in all EU Member States. The list has legal force and supplements the law, in the United Kingdom, HM Revenue and Customs have added an additional list of gold coins alongside the European Commission list. These are gold coins that HMRC recognise as falling within the VAT exemption for investment gold coins, the following list presents only the most common coins included in the European Commission list. Silver coin Palladium coin Platinum coin
14.
Gold as an investment
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Of all the precious metals, gold is the most popular as an investment. Investors generally buy gold as a way of diversifying risk, especially through the use of futures contracts, the gold market is subject to speculation and volatility as are other markets. Compared to other metals used for investment, gold has the most effective safe haven. Gold has been used throughout history as money and has been a standard for currency equivalents specific to economic regions or countries. Many European countries implemented gold standards in the part of the 19th century until these were temporarily suspended in the financial crises involving World War I. After World War II, the Bretton Woods system pegged the United States dollar to gold at a rate of US$35 per troy ounce. The system existed until the 1971 Nixon Shock, when the US unilaterally suspended the convertibility of the United States dollar to gold. The last currency to be divorced from gold was the Swiss Franc in 2000, furthermore, gold is traded continuously throughout the world based on the intra-day spot price, derived from over-the-counter gold-trading markets around the world. However unlike most other commodities, saving and disposal plays a role in affecting its price than its consumption. At the end of 2006, it was estimated that all the gold ever mined totalled 158,000 tonnes, the investor Warren Buffett has said that the total amount of gold in the world that is above-ground, could fit into a cube with sides of just 20 metres. However estimates for the amount of gold that exists today vary significantly, given the huge quantity of gold stored above-ground compared to the annual production, the price of gold is mainly affected by changes in sentiment, rather than changes in annual production. According to the World Gold Council, annual production of gold over the last few years has been close to 2,500 tonnes. About 2,000 tonnes goes into jewelry or industrial/dental production, Central banks and the International Monetary Fund play an important role in the gold price. At the end of 2004 central banks and official organizations held 19 percent of all above-ground gold as gold reserves. The ten-year Washington Agreement on Gold, which dates from September 1999, European central banks, such as the Bank of England and Swiss National Bank, were key sellers of gold over this period. In 2009, this agreement was extended for a five years. Although central banks do not generally announce gold purchases in advance, some, in early 2006, China, which only holds 1. 3% of its reserves in gold, announced that it was looking for ways to improve the returns on its official reserves. Some bulls hope that this signals that China might reposition more of its holdings into gold in line with other Central Banks, chinese investors began pursuing investment in gold as an alternative to investment in the Euro after the beginning of the Eurozone crisis in 2011
15.
Commemorative coin
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Commemorative coins are coins that were issued to commemorate some particular event or issue. Most world commemorative coins were issued from the 1960s onward, although there are examples of commemorative coins of earlier date. Such coins have a design with reference to the occasion on which they were issued. Many coins of this serve as collectors items only, although some countries are also issuing commemorative coins for regular circulation. Vast numbers of coins are continuously being issued, highlighting ancient monuments or sites, historical personalities. While such thematic coins may or may not commemorate any event or jubilee. Circulating commemoratives are intended to be used for commerce, but the design will only be issued for a time, is intended to draw some attention to a specific event or person. Examples include the €2 commemorative coins, or U. S.50 State Quarters, non-circulating legal tender are coins which are legal tender, and thus can in theory be used to purchase goods or services, but are not intended to be used in such a manner. Rather, they are intended to be used only as souvenirs, historically, the coins issued by any state have always reflected the current political or economic situation. Many ancient and pre-modern coins certainly commemorate events in contemporary times, for instance, Roman coins often have references to military campaigns and the defeat of foreign powers. These reverse types often represent the subordination of recently conquered territories to Roman authority. Such coins are examples of ancient political propaganda, the Roman Empire may be represented by a proud warrior raising an undersized figure, representing the defeated enemy. Throughout history, coins have commonly been issued on special occasions, in some cases, emergency money have been issued under unfavourable conditions, such as a city under siege. Such emergency coins were issued in Vienna in 1529, while the city was besieged by the troops of the Ottoman Empire, due to the conditions at the time, such coins are frequently minted on square flans, rather than round ones. European square coins of this era are known by their German name klippe, coins might also be issued with the specific purpose of financing a military campaign, or for the payment of tribute or war indemnity by a feudal lord to his sovereign. During recent centuries, specially prepared coins have been issued to proclaim the coronation of a new monarch, such coins are known as largesse coins. This type of coins were issued in India during the Mughal era, in Europe, such coins were scattered from the royal chariot, to achieve attention and applause from the public. In Sweden, coins of this type were issued as late as 1873, during the era of the formation of the European nation states, the issuance of special coins explicitly commemorating various events became increasingly common
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Coin collecting
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Coin collecting is the collecting of coins or other forms of minted legal tender. Coins of interest to collectors often include those that circulated for only a time, coins with mint errors. Coin collecting can be differentiated from numismatics, in that the latter is the study of currency. Though closely related, the two disciplines are not necessarily the same, a numismatist may or may not be a coin collector, and vice versa. A coins grade is a determinant of its value. For a tiered fee, a third party service like PCGS or NGC will grade, authenticate, attribute. Over 80 million coins have been certified by the four largest services, people have hoarded coins for their bullion value for as long as coins have been minted. However, the collection of coins for their value was a later development. Evidence from the archaeological and historical record of Ancient Rome and medieval Mesopotamia indicates that coins were collected and catalogued by scholars and it also seems probable that individual citizens collected old, exotic or commemorative coins as an affordable, portable form of art. Contemporary coin collecting and appreciation began around the fourteenth century, during the Renaissance, it became a fad among some members of the privileged classes, especially kings and queens. The Italian scholar and poet Petrarch is credited with being the pursuits first and most famous aficionado, following his lead, many European kings, princes, and other nobility kept collections of ancient coins. Perhaps because only the wealthy could afford the pursuit, in Renaissance times coin collecting became known as the Hobby of Kings. During the 17th and 18th centuries coin collecting remained a pursuit of the well-to-do, but rational, Enlightenment thinking led to a more systematic approach to accumulation and study. During the 19th and 20th centuries, coin collecting increased further in popularity, the market for coins expanded to include not only antique coins, but foreign or otherwise exotic currency. Coin shows, trade associations, and regulatory bodies emerged during these decades, as one of the oldest and most popular world pastimes, coin collecting is now often referred to as the King of Hobbies. The motivations for collecting are varied, possibly the most common type of collector is the hobbyist, who amasses a collection purely for fun with no real expectation of profit. This is especially true of casual collectors and children who collect items on the basis of chance, another frequent reason for purchasing coins is as an investment. As with stamps, precious metals or other commodities, coin prices are based on supply
17.
Financial transaction
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A financial transaction is an agreement, communication, or movement carried out between a buyer and a seller to exchange an asset for payment. It involves a change in the status of the finances of two or more businesses or individuals, the buyer and seller are separate entities or objects, often involving the exchange of items of value, such as information, goods, services, and money. It is still a transaction if the goods are exchanged at one time, and this is known as a two-part transaction, part one is giving the money, part two is receiving the goods. In ancient times non-financial transactions were conducted through systems of credit, in which goods. Credit has certain disadvantages, including the requirement that traders or their intermediaries trust one another, debts must eventually be settled either with goods or by payment of money, a substance of agreed value such as gold and silver. Systems of credit are evident throughout recorded history and from archeology, by contrast little evidence has been found of widespread use of pure barter, where traders meet face to face and transactions are completed in a single swap. In 1997,1.3 billion US dollars were exchanged per day on the exchange market. The world financial transactions have jumped from 1.1 quadrillion US dollars in 2002 to 2.2 quadrillion US dollars in 2008 and this is the most common type of financial transaction. An item or goods are exchanged for money and this transaction results in a decrease in the finances of the purchaser and an increase in the benefits of the sellers. The smaller delayed repayments usually add up to more than the first large amount, the difference in payments is called interest. Here, money is given for not any specific reason and this is a combined loan and purchase in which a lender gives a large amount of money to a borrower for the specific purpose of purchasing a very expensive item. As part of the transaction, the borrower usually agrees to give the item to the if the loan is not paid back on time. This guarantee of repayment is known as collateral, a bank is a business that is based almost entirely on financial transactions. In addition to acting as a lender for loans and mortgages, the lender is known as a customer and gives unspecified amounts of money to the bank for unspecified amounts of time. The bank agrees to repay any amount in the account at any time, in addition, the bank guarantees that the money will not be stolen while it is in the account and will reimburse the customer if it is. In return, the bank gets to use the money for financial transactions as long as they hold it. This is a combination of a purchase and a loan. The seller gives the buyer the good or item as normal, in this way, the buyer is paying with a loan from the credit card company, usually a bank
18.
Real versus nominal value (economics)
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In economics, a real value of a good or other entity has been adjusted for inflation, enabling comparison of quantities as if prices had not changed. Changes in real terms therefore exclude the effect of inflation, in contrast with a real value, a nominal value has not been adjusted for inflation, and so changes in nominal value reflect at least in part the effect of inflation. A representative collection of goods, or commodity bundle, is used for comparison purposes, to measure inflation. The nominal value of the commodity bundle in a year depends on prices current at the time, whereas the real value of the commodity bundle, if it is truly representative. A price index is calculated relative to a base year, indices are typically normalized at 100 in the base year. Starting from a year, a price index Pt represents the price of the commodity bundle over time t. In base year zero, P0 is set to 100, if for example the base year is 1992, real values are expressed in constant 1992 dollars, based at 100 for 1992. Also imagine for example, that the price of the commodity bundle has increased in the first year by 1%, the real value is the value expressed in terms of purchasing power in the base year. The index price divided by its base-year value P t / P0 gives the growth factor of the price index, Real values can be found by dividing the nominal value by the growth factor of a price index. The real growth rate r t is the change from one period to the next of a nominal quantity Q t in real terms and it measures by how much the buying power of the quantity has changed. So 1 + r t = =1 + g t − i t − g t i t + i t 2 + higher order terms. Hence as an approximation, r t = g t − i t The bundle of goods used to measure the Consumer Price Index is applicable to consumers. So for wage earners as consumers, a way to measure real wages is to divide the nominal wage by the growth factor in the CPI. Gross domestic product is a measure of aggregate output, nominal GDP in a particular period reflects prices which were current at the time, whereas real GDP compensates for inflation. Price indices and the U. S. National Income and Product Accounts are constructed from bundles of commodities, in the case of GDP, a suitable price index is the GDP price index. In the U. S. National Income and Product Accounts, nominal GDP is called GDP in current dollars, looking back into the past, the ex post real interest rate is approximately the historical nominal interest rate minus inflation. Looking forward into the future, the real interest rate is approximately the nominal interest rate minus the expected inflation rate. Not only time-series data, as above, but also data which depends on prices which may vary geographically for example
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American Gold Eagle
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The American gold eagle is an official gold bullion coin of the United States. Authorized under the Gold Bullion Coin Act of 1985, it was first released by the United States Mint in 1986 and this is particularly true with the 1/4-oz American gold eagle, which has a marked face value of ten dollars. Offered in 1/10 oz, 1/4 oz, 1/2 oz, and 1 oz denominations, by law, the gold must come from sources in America, alloyed with silver and copper to produce a more wear-resistant coin. The 22 kt gold alloy is an English standard traditionally referred to as crown gold. Crown gold alloys had not been used in U. S. coins since 1834, for American gold eagles the gold fraction was increased again to.9167 or. It is authorized by the United States Congress and is backed by the United States Mint for weight, the design is taken from the $20 Saint-Gaudens gold coin which was commissioned by Theodore Roosevelt to create coins like the ancient Greek and Roman coins. The reverse design, by sculptor Miley Busiek, features an eagle carrying an olive branch flying above a nest containing a female eagle. The market value of the coins is generally equal to the market value of their gold content. Like all commodities, this value fluctuates with market forces, the face values are proportional to the weights except for the 1/4 oz coin. Their actual selling prices vary based on the current spot price of gold, the United States Mint also produces proof and uncirculated versions for coin collectors. These coins are produced at the West Point Mint in West Point, the proof and uncirculated versions carry the mints mark beneath the date. Each of the four sizes contains 91. 67% gold, 3% silver, Gold eagles minted 1986–1991 are dated with Roman numerals. In 1992, the U. S. Mint switched to Arabic numbers for dating gold eagles. The 1/10, 1/4, and 1/2 troy oz coins are identical in design to the 1 troy oz coin except for the markings on the side that indicate the weight. These bullion coins carry face values of $5, $10, $25 and these are their legal values reflecting their issue and monetized value as coins. They are legal tender for all public and private at their face values. These face values do not reflect their intrinsic value which is greater and is mainly dictated by their troy weight. In 2012 the U. S. Mint sold the 2012 one ounce coin at $1,835.00
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Denomination (currency)
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Denomination is a proper description of a currency amount, usually for coins or banknotes. Denominations may also be used other means of payment like gift cards. For example, five euros is the denomination of a five euro note, in a currency, there is usually a main unit, and a subunit that is a fraction of the main unit. In some countries, there are levels of subunits. In the former Ottoman Empire,1 lira =100 kuruş =4000 para =12000 akçe, today, only a few places have more than one subunit, notably Chinese speaking regions, the mainland China, the Hong Kong, and Republic of Chinas. In addition, the Jordanian dinar is divided into 10 dirham,100 qirsh/piastres, many countries where Western European languages are spoken currently have their main units divided into 100 subunits. Some currencies that previously had no longer do, because inflation has rendered the subunit useless. A prominent example is the Japanese yen, which was divided into 100 sen or 1000 rin. Both subunits were demonetized at the end of 1953, occasionally, a super unit is used as a multiple of the main unit. Examples include Korean won =5 yang in 1893, Iranian toman 10 rials, in the Ottoman Empire, lira and kuruş were super units at some point before becoming the main unit. A decimal currency is a currency where the ratio between the unit and the subunit is an integral power of 10. Non-decimal currencies are now rare but had advantages in daily life transactions. For example,1 South German Gulden =60 Kreuzer,60 can be divided into 2,3,4,5,6,10,12,15,20 or 30 parts that are still integers, making pricing easy. This advantage and the lack of widespread accurate weighing apparatus coupled with tradition were the reasons why non-decimal currencies were used, in theory, two countries currently use non-decimal currency, Mauritania and Madagascar. In practice, however, the value of the unit in each case is so low that the sub-unit is not of any practical use and is rarely seen in circulation. The last major countries to use non-decimal currencies in practice were the United Kingdom, Ireland, Malta, the average number of coins needed to make change. It is common to name a unit with a unit of weight, such as pound, lira, in most cases, these currencies were originally defined as that amount of some precious metal. Another choice of name is some form of derivative of the political entity, the Afghan afghani and European euro fall into this category
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United States dollar
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The United States dollar is the official currency of the United States and its insular territories per the United States Constitution. It is divided into 100 smaller cent units, the circulating paper money consists of Federal Reserve Notes that are denominated in United States dollars. The U. S. dollar was originally commodity money of silver as enacted by the Coinage Act of 1792 which determined the dollar to be 371 4/16 grain pure or 416 grain standard silver, the currency most used in international transactions, it is the worlds primary reserve currency. Several countries use it as their currency, and in many others it is the de facto currency. Besides the United States, it is used as the sole currency in two British Overseas Territories in the Caribbean, the British Virgin Islands and Turks and Caicos Islands. A few countries use the Federal Reserve Notes for paper money, while the country mints its own coins, or also accepts U. S. coins that can be used as payment in U. S. dollars. After Nixon shock of 1971, USD became fiat currency, Article I, Section 8 of the U. S. Constitution provides that the Congress has the power To coin money, laws implementing this power are currently codified at 31 U. S. C. Section 5112 prescribes the forms in which the United States dollars should be issued and these coins are both designated in Section 5112 as legal tender in payment of debts. The Sacagawea dollar is one example of the copper alloy dollar, the pure silver dollar is known as the American Silver Eagle. Section 5112 also provides for the minting and issuance of other coins and these other coins are more fully described in Coins of the United States dollar. The Constitution provides that a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and that provision of the Constitution is made specific by Section 331 of Title 31 of the United States Code. The sums of money reported in the Statements are currently being expressed in U. S. dollars, the U. S. dollar may therefore be described as the unit of account of the United States. The word dollar is one of the words in the first paragraph of Section 9 of Article I of the Constitution, there, dollars is a reference to the Spanish milled dollar, a coin that had a monetary value of 8 Spanish units of currency, or reales. In 1792 the U. S. Congress passed a Coinage Act, Section 20 of the act provided, That the money of account of the United States shall be expressed in dollars, or units. And that all accounts in the offices and all proceedings in the courts of the United States shall be kept and had in conformity to this regulation. In other words, this act designated the United States dollar as the unit of currency of the United States, unlike the Spanish milled dollar the U. S. dollar is based upon a decimal system of values. Both one-dollar coins and notes are produced today, although the form is significantly more common
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Central bank
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A central bank, reserve bank, or monetary authority is an institution that manages a states currency, money supply, and interest rates. Central banks also usually oversee the commercial banking system of their respective countries, Central banks in most developed nations are institutionally designed to be independent from political interference. Still, limited control by the executive and legislative bodies usually exists, prior to the 17th century most money was commodity money, typically gold or silver. However, promises to pay were widely circulated and accepted as value at least five hundred years earlier in both Europe and Asia. The Song dynasty was the first to issue generally circulating paper currency, in 1455, in an effort to control inflation, the succeeding Ming Dynasty ended the use of paper money and closed much of Chinese trade. The Bank of Amsterdam, established in the Dutch Republic in 1609, is considered to be the forerunner to modern central banks. The Wisselbanks innovations helped lay the foundations for the birth and development of the banking system that now plays a vital role in the worlds economy. Along with a number of local banks, it performed many functions of a central banking system. Lucien Gillard calls it the European guilder, and Adam Smith devotes many pages to explaining how the bank guilder works, the model of the Wisselbank as a state bank was adapted throughout Europe, including the Bank of Sweden and the Bank of England. Established by Dutch-Latvian Johan Palmstruch in 1668, Sveriges Riksbank is often considered by many as the worlds oldest central bank, the lenders would give the government cash and also issue notes against the government bonds, which could be lent again. A Royal Charter was granted on 27 July through the passage of the Tonnage Act 1694, the bank was given exclusive possession of the governments balances, and was the only limited-liability corporation allowed to issue banknotes. The £1. 2M was raised in 12 days, half of this was used to rebuild the Navy and these modern central banking functions evolved slowly through the 18th and 19th centuries. The currency crisis of 1797, caused by panicked depositors withdrawing from the Bank led to the government suspending convertibility of notes into specie payment. The bank was accused by the bullionists of causing the exchange rate to fall from over issuing banknotes. Nevertheless, it was clear that the Bank was being treated as an organ of the state, henry Thornton, a merchant banker and monetary theorist has been described as the father of the modern central bank. An opponent of the real bills doctrine, he was a defender of the bullionist position, thorntons process of monetary expansion anticipated the theories of Knut Wicksell regarding the cumulative process which restates the Quantity Theory in a theoretically coherent form. Until the mid-nineteenth century, commercial banks were able to issue their own banknotes, many consider the origins of the central bank to lie with the passage of the Bank Charter Act of 1844. Under this law, authorisation to issue new banknotes was restricted to the Bank of England, at the same time, the Bank of England was restricted to issue new banknotes only if they were 100% backed by gold or up to £14 million in government debt
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Gold bar
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Larger gold bars that are produced by pouring the molten metal into molds are called ingots. Smaller bars may be manufactured by minting or stamping from appropriately rolled gold sheets, the standard gold bar held as gold reserves by central banks and traded among bullion dealers is the 400-troy-ounce Good Delivery gold bar. The kilobar, which is 1000 grams in mass, is the bar that is manageable and is used extensively for trading. The premium on these bars when traded is very low over the value of the gold making it ideal for small transfers between banks and traders. Most kilobars are flat, although some investors, particularly in Europe, Gold bars are classified into two different types, cast and minted, based on their method of manufacturing. Cast bars are made by pouring molten gold into a mold to shape the gold product. Minted bars are made from gold blanks that have been cut to the required dimensions from a flat piece of gold. Markings are almost always applied by presses, Gold is measured in troy ounces, often simply referred to as ounce when the reference to gold is evident. One troy ounce is equivalent to 31.1034768 grams, commonly encountered in daily life is the avoirdupois ounce, an Imperial weight in countries still using British weights and measures or United States customary units. The avoirdupois ounce is lighter than an ounce, one avoirdupois ounce equals 28.349523125 grams. The standard gold bar held and traded internationally by central banks, however, its precise gold content is permitted to vary between 350 oz and 430 oz. The minimum purity required is 99. 5% gold and these bars must be stored in recognized and secure gold bullion vaults to maintain their quality status of Good Delivery. The recorded provenance of this bar assures integrity and maximum resale value, one tonne =1000 kilograms =32,150.746 troy ounces. One kilogram =1000 grams =32.15074656 troy ounces, one tola =11.6638038 grams =0.375 troy ounces. TT =117 grams Tola is a traditional Indian measure for the weight of gold, many international gold manufacturers supply tola bars of 999.96 purity. The worlds largest gold bar stands at 250 kg, measuring at the base 45.5 cm ×22.5 cm and 17 cm high with 5 degree draft angle and it was manufactured by the Mitsubishi Materials Corporation, a subsidiary of Mitsubishi. It went on display at the Toi Gold Museum on July 11,2005. Its gold content was valued in 2005 at 400 million yen, As of 29 October 2014, it is worth approximately US$10. 33M, Bullion Doré bar Fort Knox Bullion Depository Gold as an investment Gold coin Ingot Millesimal fineness Official gold reserves Platinum Precious metal Silver
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Money
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The main functions of money are distinguished as, a medium of exchange, a unit of account, a store of value, and, sometimes, a standard of deferred payment. Any item or verifiable record that fulfills these functions can be considered as money, Money is historically an emergent market phenomenon establishing a commodity money, but nearly all contemporary money systems are based on fiat money. Fiat money, like any check or note of debt, is without use value as a physical commodity. It derives its value by being declared by a government to be legal tender, the money supply of a country consists of currency and, depending on the particular definition used, one or more types of bank money. Bank money, which consists only of records, forms by far the largest part of money in developed countries. The word money is believed to originate from a temple of Juno, in the ancient world Juno was often associated with money. The temple of Juno Moneta at Rome was the place where the mint of Ancient Rome was located, the name Juno may derive from the Etruscan goddess Uni and Moneta either from the Latin word monere or the Greek word moneres. In the Western world, a prevalent term for coin-money has been specie, stemming from Latin in specie, meaning in kind. The use of methods may date back to at least 100,000 years ago. Instead, non-monetary societies operated largely along the principles of gift economy, when barter did in fact occur, it was usually between either complete strangers or potential enemies. Many cultures around the world eventually developed the use of commodity money, the Mesopotamian shekel was a unit of weight, and relied on the mass of something like 160 grains of barley. The first usage of the came from Mesopotamia circa 3000 BC. Societies in the Americas, Asia, Africa and Australia used shell money – often, according to Herodotus, the Lydians were the first people to introduce the use of gold and silver coins. It is thought by scholars that these first stamped coins were minted around 650–600 BC. The system of commodity money eventually evolved into a system of representative money and this occurred because gold and silver merchants or banks would issue receipts to their depositors – redeemable for the commodity money deposited. Eventually, these became generally accepted as a means of payment and were used as money. Paper money or banknotes were first used in China during the Song Dynasty and these banknotes, known as jiaozi, evolved from promissory notes that had been used since the 7th century. However, they did not displace commodity money, and were used alongside coins, in the 13th century, paper money became known in Europe through the accounts of travelers, such as Marco Polo and William of Rubruck
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Commodity
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In economics, a commodity is a marketable item produced to satisfy wants or needs. Economic commodities comprise goods and services, the word commodity came into use in English in the 15th century, from the French commodité, amenity, convenience. Going further back, the French word derives from the Latin commoditas, meaning suitability, convenience, the Latin word commodus meant variously appropriate, proper measure, time, or condition, and advantage, benefit. The term commodity is specifically used for a good or service when the demand for it has no qualitative differentiation across a market. In other words, a commodity good or service has full or partial but substantial fungibility, that is, the market treats its instances as equivalent or nearly so with no regard to who produced them. As the saying goes, From the taste of wheat, it is not possible to tell who produced it, a Russian serf, petroleum and copper are other examples of such commodities, their supply and demand being a part of one universal market. Items such as systems, on the other hand, have many aspects of product differentiation, such as the brand, the user interface. The demand for one type of stereo may be larger than demand for another. In contrast, one of the characteristics of a commodity good is that its price is determined as a function of its market as a whole, well-established physical commodities have actively traded spot and derivative markets. Generally, these are basic resources and agricultural products such as ore, sugar. Soft commodities are goods that are grown, while hard commodities are ones that are extracted through mining, there is another important class of energy commodities which includes electricity, gas, coal and oil. Electricity has the characteristic that it is usually uneconomical to store, hence. Commoditization occurs as a goods or services market loses differentiation across its supply base, as such, goods that formerly carried premium margins for market participants have become commodities, such as generic pharmaceuticals and DRAM chips. Following this trend, nanomaterials are emerging from carrying premium profit margins for market participants to a status of commodification, there is a spectrum of commoditization, rather than a binary distinction of commodity versus differentiable product. Many products degree of commoditization depends on the mentality and means. For example, milk, eggs, and notebook paper are not differentiated by many customers, for them, other customers take into consideration other factors besides price, such as environmental sustainability and animal welfare. This is a list of companies trading globally in commodities, descending by size as of October 28,2011, on a commodity exchange, it is the underlying standard stated in the contract that defines the commodity, not any quality inherent in a specific producers product. Commodities exchanges include, Bourse Africa Bursa Malaysia Derivatives Chicago Board of Trade Chicago Mercantile Exchange Dalian Commodity Exchange Euronext and these markets will quickly respond to changes in supply and demand to find an equilibrium price and quantity
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Silver
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Silver is a metallic element with symbol Ag and atomic number 47. The symbol Ag stems from Latin argentum, derived from the Greek ὰργὀς, a soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it exhibits the highest electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity, and reflectivity of any metal. The metal is found in the Earths crust in the pure, free form, as an alloy with gold and other metals. Most silver is produced as a byproduct of copper, gold, lead, Silver is more abundant than gold, but it is much less abundant as a native metal. Its purity is measured on a per mille basis, a 94%-pure alloy is described as 0.940 fine. As one of the seven metals of antiquity, silver has had a role in most human cultures. Silver has long valued as a precious metal. Silver metal is used in many premodern monetary systems in bullion coins, Silver is used in numerous applications other than currency, such as solar panels, water filtration, jewelry, ornaments, high-value tableware and utensils, and as an investment medium. Silver is used industrially in electrical contacts and conductors, in specialized mirrors, window coatings, Silver compounds are used in photographic film and X-rays. Dilute silver nitrate solutions and other compounds are used as disinfectants and microbiocides, added to bandages and wound-dressings, catheters. Silver is similar in its physical and chemical properties to its two neighbours in group 11 of the periodic table, copper and gold. This distinctive electron configuration, with an electron in the highest occupied s subshell over a filled d subshell. Silver is a soft, ductile and malleable transition metal. Silver crystallizes in a cubic lattice with bulk coordination number 12. Unlike metals with incomplete d-shells, metallic bonds in silver are lacking a covalent character and are relatively weak and this observation explains the low hardness and high ductility of single crystals of silver. Silver has a brilliant white metallic luster that can take a polish. Protected silver has greater optical reflectivity than aluminium at all wavelengths longer than ~450 nm, at wavelengths shorter than 450 nm, silvers reflectivity is inferior to that of aluminium and drops to zero near 310 nm. The electrical conductivity of silver is the greatest of all metals, greater even than copper, during World War II in the US,13540 tons of silver were used in electromagnets for enriching uranium, mainly because of the wartime shortage of copper
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Density
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The density, or more precisely, the volumetric mass density, of a substance is its mass per unit volume. The symbol most often used for density is ρ, although the Latin letter D can also be used. Mathematically, density is defined as mass divided by volume, ρ = m V, where ρ is the density, m is the mass, and V is the volume. In some cases, density is defined as its weight per unit volume. For a pure substance the density has the numerical value as its mass concentration. Different materials usually have different densities, and density may be relevant to buoyancy, purity, osmium and iridium are the densest known elements at standard conditions for temperature and pressure but certain chemical compounds may be denser. Thus a relative density less than one means that the floats in water. The density of a material varies with temperature and pressure and this variation is typically small for solids and liquids but much greater for gases. Increasing the pressure on an object decreases the volume of the object, increasing the temperature of a substance decreases its density by increasing its volume. In most materials, heating the bottom of a results in convection of the heat from the bottom to the top. This causes it to rise relative to more dense unheated material, the reciprocal of the density of a substance is occasionally called its specific volume, a term sometimes used in thermodynamics. Density is a property in that increasing the amount of a substance does not increase its density. Archimedes knew that the irregularly shaped wreath could be crushed into a cube whose volume could be calculated easily and compared with the mass, upon this discovery, he leapt from his bath and ran naked through the streets shouting, Eureka. As a result, the term eureka entered common parlance and is used today to indicate a moment of enlightenment, the story first appeared in written form in Vitruvius books of architecture, two centuries after it supposedly took place. Some scholars have doubted the accuracy of this tale, saying among other things that the method would have required precise measurements that would have been difficult to make at the time, from the equation for density, mass density has units of mass divided by volume. As there are units of mass and volume covering many different magnitudes there are a large number of units for mass density in use. The SI unit of kilogram per metre and the cgs unit of gram per cubic centimetre are probably the most commonly used units for density.1,000 kg/m3 equals 1 g/cm3. In industry, other larger or smaller units of mass and or volume are often more practical, see below for a list of some of the most common units of density
28.
Counterfeit
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To counterfeit means to imitate something. Counterfeit products are fakes or unauthorised replicas of the real product, counterfeit products are often produced with the intent to take advantage of the superior value of the imitated product. Counterfeit products tend to have company logos and brands, have a reputation for being lower quality. This has resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, due to automobile and aviation accidents, poisoning, the counterfeiting of money is usually attacked aggressively by governments worldwide. Paper money is the most popular product counterfeited, counterfeit money is currency that is produced without the legal sanction of the state or government and in deliberate violation of that countrys laws. The United States Secret Service, mostly known for its guarding-of-officials task, was organized primarily to combat the counterfeiting of American money. Forgery is the process of making or adapting documents with the intention to deceive and it is a form of fraud, and is often a key technique in the execution of identity theft. Uttering and publishing is a term in United States law for the forgery of documents, such as a trucking companys time. Questioned document examination is a process for investigating many aspects of various documents. Security printing is a printing industry specialty, focused on creating legal documents which are difficult to forge, the spread of counterfeit goods has become global in recent years and the range of goods subject to infringement has increased significantly. Apparel and accessories accounted for over 50 percent of the goods seized by U. S Customs. A report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development indicates that up to US$200 Billion of international trade could have been in counterfeit and illegally copied goods in 2005. In November 2009, the OECD updated these estimates, concluding that the share of counterfeit and that represents an increase to US$250 billion worldwide. In a detailed breakdown of the counterfeit goods industry, the total loss faced by countries around the world is $600 billion, when calculating counterfeit products, current estimates place the global losses at $400 billion. Some see the rise in counterfeiting of goods as being related to globalisation and these new managers of production have little or no loyalty to the original corporation. They see that profits are being made by the brand for doing little and see the possibilities of removing the middle men. Certain consumer goods, especially expensive or desirable brands or those that are easy to reproduce cheaply, have become frequent. The counterfeiters either attempt to deceive the consumer into thinking they are purchasing a legitimate item, or convince the consumer that they could deceive others with the imitation
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Achaemenid Empire
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The Achaemenid Empire, also called the Persian Empire, was an empire based in Western Asia, founded by Cyrus the Great. The empires successes inspired similar systems in later empires and it is noted in Western history as the antagonist of the Greek city-states during the Greco-Persian Wars and for the emancipation of the Jewish exiles in Babylon. The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, was built in a Hellenistic style in the empire as well. By the 7th century BC, the Persians had settled in the portion of the Iranian Plateau in the region of Persis. From this region, Cyrus the Great advanced to defeat the Medes, Lydia, Alexander, an avid admirer of Cyrus the Great, conquered the empire in its entirety by 330 BC. Upon his death, most of the former territory came under the rule of the Ptolemaic Kingdom and Seleucid Empire. The Persian population of the central plateau reclaimed power by the second century BC under the Parthian Empire, the historical mark of the Achaemenid Empire went far beyond its territorial and military influences and included cultural, social, technological and religious influences as well. Many Athenians adopted Achaemenid customs in their lives in a reciprocal cultural exchange. The impact of Cyruss edict is mentioned in Judeo-Christian texts, the empire also set the tone for the politics, heritage and history of modern Iran. Astronomical year numbering Dates are approximate, consult particular article for details Due to the duration of their reigns, Smerdis, Xerxes II. The Persian nation contains a number of tribes as listed here, the Pasargadae, Maraphii, and Maspii, upon which all the other tribes are dependent. Of these, the Pasargadae are the most distinguished, they contain the clan of the Achaemenids from which spring the Perseid kings. Other tribes are the Panthialaei, Derusiaei, Germanii, all of which are attached to the soil, the Achaemenid Empire was created by nomadic Persians. The Achaemenid Empire was not the first Iranian empire, as by 6th century BC another group of ancient Iranian peoples had established the short lived Median Empire. The Iranian peoples had arrived in the region of what is today Iran c.1000 BC and had for a number of centuries fallen under the domination of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, based in northern Mesopotamia. However, the Medes and Persians, Cimmerians, Persians and Chaldeans played a role in the overthrow of the Assyrian empire. The term Achaemenid means of the family of the Achaemenis/Achaemenes, despite the derivation of the name, Achaemenes was himself a minor seventh-century ruler of the Anshan in southwestern Iran, and a vassal of Assyria. At some point in 550 BC, Cyrus rose in rebellion against the Medes, eventually conquering the Medes and creating the first Persian empire
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Persian daric
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The Persian daric was a gold coin which, along with a similar silver coin, the siglos, represented the bimetallic monetary standard of the Achaemenid Persian Empire. Cyrus the Great introduced coins to the Persian Empire after 546 BC, Darius I introduced a thick gold coin which had a standard weight of 8.4 grams, equaling in value 20 silver coins. The gold used in the coins was of high quality with a purity of 95. 83%. Their use ended with Alexander the Greats invasion in 330 BC, after which they were melted down. This is believed to be the reason for their rarity. Close to the end of the 5th century BC, the Persian satraps in Asia Minor decided to strike their own coins, Darius considered such encroachment a crime punishable by death since the right of coinage was treated as an exclusively royal prerogative. The coin is mentioned twice in the Hebrew Bible, where it is called the adarkonim, the first Book of Chronicles describes King David as asking an assembly of people to donate for the construction of the Temple. The other instance is Ezra 8,27, also a derivative Greek term darkemonium is recorded in Ezra 2,69, the ancient Greeks believed that the term dareikós was derived from the name of Darius the Great, who was believed to have introduced these coins
31.
Solidus (coin)
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The solidus, nomisma, or bezant was originally a relatively pure gold coin issued in the Late Roman Empire. Under Constantine, who introduced it on a scale, it had a weight of about 4.5 grams. The Byzantine solidus also inspired the originally slightly less pure Arabian dinar, in late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, the solidus also functioned as a unit of weight equal to 1/72 of a pound. The solidus was introduced by Diocletian in AD301 as a replacement of the aureus, composed of solid gold. His minting was on a scale, however, and the coin only entered widespread circulation under Constantine I after AD312. Constantines solidus was struck at a rate of 72 to a Roman pound of gold, each coin weighed 24 Greco-Roman carats. By this time, the solidus was worth 275,000 increasingly debased denarii, with the exception of the early issues of Constantine the Great and the odd usurpers the Solidus today is a much more affordable Gold Roman Coin to collect compared to the Older Aureus. Especially those of Valens Honorius and later Byzantine issues, the solidus was maintained essentially unaltered in weight, dimensions and purity until the 10th century. During the 6th and 7th centuries lightweight solidi of 20,22 or 23 siliquae were struck along with the weight issues. Many of these coins have been found in Europe, Russia and Georgia. The lightweight solidi were distinguished by different markings on the coin, usually in the exergue for the 20 and 22 siliquae coins and by stars in the field for the 23 siliquae coins. In theory the solidus was struck from pure gold, but because of the limits of refining techniques, in the Greek-speaking world during the Roman period, and then in the Byzantine economy, the solidus was known as the νόμισμα nomisma. Initially it was difficult to distinguish the two coins, as they had the design, dimensions and purity, and there were no marks of value to distinguish the denominations. The only difference was the weight, the tetarteron nomisma was a lighter coin, about 4.05 grams, but the histamenon nomisma maintained the traditional weight of 4.5 grams. To eliminate confusion between the two, from the reign of Basil II the solidus was struck as a coin with a larger diameter. From the middle of the 11th century the larger diameter histamenon nomisma was struck on a concave flan, former money changer Michael IV the Paphlagonian assumed the throne of Byzantium in 1034 and began the slow process of debasing both the tetarteron nomisma and the histamenon nomisma. Alexius reformed the coinage in 1092 and eliminated the solidus altogether, in its place he introduced a new gold coin called the hyperpyron nomisma at about 20. 5k fine. The weight, dimensions and purity of the hyperpyron nomisma remained stable until the fall of Constantinople to the Crusaders in 1204, after that time the exiled Empire of Nicea continued to strike a debased hyperpyron nomisma
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Valentinian II
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Valentinian II, was Roman Emperor from AD375 to 392. Flavius Valentinianus was born to Emperor Valentinian I and his second wife and he was the half-brother of Valentinian’s other son, Gratian, who had shared the imperial title with his father since 367. He had three sisters Galla, Grata and Justa, the elder Valentinian died on campaign in Pannonia in 375. Neither Gratian nor his uncle Valens were consulted by the commanders on the scene. Instead of merely acknowledging Gratian as his father’s successor, Valentinian I’s generals acclaimed the four-year-old Valentinian augustus on 22 November 375. The army, and its Frankish general Merobaudes, may have been uneasy about Gratians lack of military ability, and so raised a boy who would not immediately aspire to military command. Gratian, forced to accommodate the generals who supported his half-brother, governed the provinces, while Italy, part of Illyricum. In 378, their uncle, the Emperor Valens, was killed in battle with the Goths at Adrianople, and Gratian invited the general Theodosius to be emperor in the East. As a child, Valentinian II was under the influence of his Arian mother, the Empress Justina, and the court at Milan. Justina used her influence over her son to oppose the Nicean party which was championed by Ambrose. In 385 Ambrose, backed by Milans populace, refused an imperial request to hand over the Portian basilica for the use of Arian troops. In 386 Justina and Valentinian received the Arian bishop Auxentius, Ambrose and his congregation barricaded themselves inside the church, and the imperial order was rescinded. Magnus Maximus used the emperor’s heterodoxy against him, and even his eventual protector, Theodosius, Valentinian also tried to restrain the despoiling of pagan temples in Rome. Valentinian, at the insistence of Ambrose, refused the request and, in so doing, rejected the traditions, in 383, Magnus Maximus, commander of the armies in Britain, declared himself Emperor and established himself in Gaul and Hispania. For a time the court of Valentinian, through the mediation of Ambrose, came to an accommodation with the usurper, in 386 or 387, Maximus crossed the Alps into the Po valley and threatened Milan. Valentinian II and Justina fled to Theodosius in Thessalonica, the latter came to an agreement, cemented by his marriage to Valentinian’s sister Galla, to restore the young emperor in the West. In 388, Theodosius marched west and defeated Maximus, although he was to appoint both of his sons emperor, Theodosius remained loyal to the dynasty of Valentinian I. After the defeat of Maximus, Theodosius remained in Milan until 391, Valentinian took no part in Theodosiuss triumphal celebrations over Maximus
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Ancient Near East
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The ancient Near East is studied in the fields of Near Eastern archaeology and ancient history. The ancient Near East is considered one of the cradles of civilization and it also saw the creation of the first writing system and law codes, early advances that laid the foundations of astronomy and mathematics, and the invention of the wheel. During the period, states became increasingly large, until by the end the region was controlled by military empires who had conquered a number of different cultures. The phrase ancient Near East utilizes the 19th-century distinction between Near East and Far East as global regions of interest to the British Empire, the distinction began during the Crimean War. The two theatres were described by the statesmen and advisors of the British Empire as the Near East, shortly, they were to share the stage with Middle East, which came to prevail in the 20th century and continues in modern times. Meanwhile, ancient Near East had become distinct, the Near East ruled by the Ottoman Empire ranged from Vienna to the north to the tip of the Arabian Peninsula to the south, from Egypt in the west to the borders of Iraq in the east. The 19th-century archaeologists added Iran to their definition, which was never under the Ottomans, but they excluded all of Europe and, generally, Egypt, which had parts in the empire. Ancient Near East periodization is the attempt to categorize or divide time into discrete named blocks, or eras, the result is a descriptive abstraction that provides a useful handle on Near East periods of time with relatively stable characteristics. Named after the Sumerian city of Uruk, this saw the emergence of urban life in Mesopotamia. It was followed by the Sumerian civilization, the late Uruk period saw the gradual emergence of the cuneiform script and corresponds to the Early Bronze Age. Sumer, located in southern Mesopotamia, is the earliest known civilization in the world, the Akkadian Empire, founded by Sargon the Great, lasted from the 24th to the 21st century BC, and was regarded by many as the worlds first Empire. The Akkadians eventually fragmented into Assyria and Babylonia, Ancient Elam lay to the east of Sumer and Akkad, in the far west and southwest of modern-day Iran, stretching from the lowlands of Khuzestan and Ilam Province. In the Old Elamite period, c.3200 BC, it consisted of kingdoms on the Iranian plateau, centered on Anshan, and from the mid-2nd millennium BC, it was centered on Susa in the Khuzestan lowlands. Elam was absorbed into the Assyrian Empire in the 9th to 7th centuries BC, however, the Proto-Elamite civilization existed from c.3200 BC to 2700 BC, when Susa, the later capital of the Elamites, began to receive influence from the cultures of the Iranian plateau. In archaeological terms, this corresponds to the late Banesh period and this civilization is recognized as the oldest in Iran and was largely contemporary with its neighbour, the Sumerian civilization. The Proto-Elamite script is an Early Bronze Age writing system briefly in use for the ancient Elamite language before the introduction of Elamite Cuneiform, the Amorites were a nomadic Semitic people who occupied the country west of the Euphrates from the second half of the 3rd millennium BC. In the earliest Sumerian sources, beginning about 2400 BC, the land of the Amorites is associated with the West, including Syria and Canaan and they ultimately settled in Mesopotamia, ruling Isin, Larsa, and later Babylon. Assyria, after enduring a period of Mitanni domination, emerged as a great power from the accession of Ashur-uballit I in 1365 BC to the death of Tiglath-Pileser I in 1076 BC
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Bronze Age
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The Bronze Age is a historical period characterized by the use of bronze, proto-writing, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the principal period of the three-age Stone-Bronze-Iron system, as proposed in modern times by Christian Jürgensen Thomsen. An ancient civilization is defined to be in the Bronze Age either by smelting its own copper and alloying with tin, arsenic, or other metals, or by trading for bronze from production areas elsewhere. Copper-tin ores are rare, as reflected in the fact there were no tin bronzes in Western Asia before trading in bronze began in the third millennium BC. Worldwide, the Bronze Age generally followed the Neolithic period, with the Chalcolithic serving as a transition, although the Iron Age generally followed the Bronze Age, in some areas, the Iron Age intruded directly on the Neolithic. Bronze Age cultures differed in their development of the first writing, according to archaeological evidence, cultures in Mesopotamia and Egypt developed the earliest viable writing systems. The overall period is characterized by use of bronze, though the place and time of the introduction. Human-made tin bronze technology requires set production techniques, tin must be mined and smelted separately, then added to molten copper to make bronze alloy. The Bronze Age was a time of use of metals. The dating of the foil has been disputed, the Bronze Age in the ancient Near East began with the rise of Sumer in the 4th millennium BC. Societies in the region laid the foundations for astronomy and mathematics, the usual tripartite division into an Early, Middle and Late Bronze Age is not used. Instead, a division based on art-historical and historical characteristics is more common. The cities of the Ancient Near East housed several tens of thousands of people, ur in the Middle Bronze Age and Babylon in the Late Bronze Age similarly had large populations. The earliest mention of Babylonia appears on a tablet from the reign of Sargon of Akkad in the 23rd century BC, the Amorite dynasty established the city-state of Babylon in the 19th century BC. Over 100 years later, it took over the other city-states. Babylonia adopted the written Semitic Akkadian language for official use, by that time, the Sumerian language was no longer spoken, but was still in religious use. Elam was an ancient civilization located to the east of Mesopotamia, in the Old Elamite period, Elam consisted of kingdoms on the Iranian plateau, centered in Anshan, and from the mid-2nd millennium BC, it was centered in Susa in the Khuzestan lowlands. Its culture played a role in the Gutian Empire and especially during the Achaemenid dynasty that succeeded it
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Anatolia
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Anatolia, in geography known as Asia Minor, Asian Turkey, Anatolian peninsula, or Anatolian plateau, is the westernmost protrusion of Asia, which makes up the majority of modern-day Turkey. The region is bounded by the Black Sea to the north, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, the Sea of Marmara forms a connection between the Black and Aegean Seas through the Bosphorus and Dardanelles straits and separates Anatolia from Thrace on the European mainland. Traditionally, Anatolia is considered to extend in the east to a line between the Gulf of Alexandretta and the Black Sea to the Armenian Highlands, thus, traditionally Anatolia is the territory that comprises approximately the western two-thirds of the Asian part of Turkey. The Turkification of Anatolia began under the Seljuk Empire in the late 11th century, however, various non-Turkic languages continue to be spoken by minorities in Anatolia today, including Kurdish, Assyrian, Armenian, Arabic, Laz, Georgian, and Greek. Traditionally, Anatolia is considered to extend in the east to a line running from the Gulf of Alexandretta to the Black Sea. This traditional geographical definition is used, for example, in the latest edition of Merriam-Websters Geographical Dictionary, under this definition, Anatolia is bounded to the east by the Armenian Highlands, and the Euphrates before that river bends to the southeast to enter Mesopotamia. To the southeast, it is bounded by the ranges that separate it from the Orontes valley in Syria, the first name the Greeks used for the Anatolian peninsula was Ἀσία, presumably after the name of the Assuwa league in western Anatolia. As the name of Asia came to be extended to areas east of the Mediterranean. The name Anatolia derives from the Greek ἀνατολή meaning “the East” or more literally “sunrise”, the precise reference of this term has varied over time, perhaps originally referring to the Aeolian, Ionian and Dorian colonies on the west coast of Asia Minor. In the Byzantine Empire, the Anatolic Theme was a theme covering the western, the modern Turkish form of Anatolia is Anadolu, which again derives from the Greek name Aνατολή. The Russian male name Anatoly and the French Anatole share the same linguistic origin, in English the name of Turkey for ancient Anatolia first appeared c. It is derived from the Medieval Latin Turchia, which was used by the Europeans to define the Seljuk controlled parts of Anatolia after the Battle of Manzikert. Human habitation in Anatolia dates back to the Paleolithic, neolithic Anatolia has been proposed as the homeland of the Indo-European language family, although linguists tend to favour a later origin in the steppes north of the Black Sea. However, it is clear that the Anatolian languages, the oldest branch of Indo-European, have spoken in Anatolia since at least the 19th century BC. The earliest historical records of Anatolia stem from the southeast of the region and are from the Mesopotamian-based Akkadian Empire during the reign of Sargon of Akkad in the 24th century BC, scholars generally believe the earliest indigenous populations of Anatolia were the Hattians and Hurrians. The region was famous for exporting raw materials, and areas of Hattian-, one of the numerous cuneiform records dated circa 20th century BC, found in Anatolia at the Assyrian colony of Kanesh, uses an advanced system of trading computations and credit lines. They were speakers of an Indo-European language, the Hittite language, originating from Nesa, they conquered Hattusa in the 18th century BC, imposing themselves over Hattian- and Hurrian-speaking populations. According to the most widely accepted Kurgan theory on the Proto-Indo-European homeland, however, the Hittites adopted the cuneiform script, invented in Mesopotamia
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Croesus
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Croesus was the king of Lydia who, according to Herodotus, reigned for 14 years, from 560 BC until his defeat by the Persian king Cyrus the Great in 546 BC. Croesus was renowned for his wealth, Herodotus and Pausanias noted that his gifts were preserved at Delphi, the fall of Croesus made a profound impact on the Greeks, providing a fixed point in their calendar. By the fifth century at least, J. A. S, evans has remarked, Croesus had become a figure of myth, who stood outside the conventional restraints of chronology.1, and Ctesias, whose account is also an encomium of Cyrus. Croesus is a descendant of Gyges, of the Myrmnadae Clan, born about 595 BC, Croesus received tribute from the Ionian Greeks but was friendlier to the Hellenes than his father had been. Croesus is credited with issuing the first true gold coins with a standardised purity for general circulation, however, they were quite crude, and were made of electrum, a naturally occurring pale yellow alloy of gold and silver. The composition of these first coins was similar to alluvial deposits found in the silt of the Pactolus river, later coins, including some in the British Museum, were made from gold purified by heating with common salt to remove the silver. King Croesus gold coins follow the first silver coins that had been minted by King Pheidon of Argos around 700 BC, in Greek and Persian cultures the name of Croesus became a synonym for a wealthy man. Croesus wealth remained proverbial beyond classical antiquity, in English, expressions such as rich as Croesus or richer than Croesus are used to great wealth to this day. According to Herodotus, Croesus encountered the Greek sage Solon and showed him his enormous wealth, Solon goes on to explain that Croesus cannot be the happiest man because the fickleness of fortune means that the happiness of a mans life cannot be judged until after his death. The interview is in the nature of a philosophical disquisition on the subject Which man is happy and it is legendary rather than historical. Thus the happiness of Croesus is presented as an exemplum of the fickleness of Tyche. The story was retold and elaborated by Ausonius in The Masque of the Seven Sages, in the Suda. According to Herodotus, Croesus desired to discover which of the well known oracles of his time gave trustworthy omens. Then on the 100th day the envoys entered the oracle of Delphi in order to ask for the omen, the Pythia answered in verse, I know the sands number, I understand the mute and hear him though he does not speak. The smell has come to my senses of a hard-shelled tortoise Being cooked in bronze together with meat, There is bronze beneath it. The envoys wrote down the answer and returned to Sardis, Croesus read all the answers brought by his envoys from all the oracles. As soon as he read the answer of the Pythia he bowed, because he was persuaded that it was the only real oracle, along with that of Amphiaraus. Indeed, on the specific date Croesus had put pieces of a tortoise and lamb to boil together in a bronze cauldron, then, Croesus wanted to thank and take on his side the oracle of Delphi
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Lydia
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Lydia was an Iron Age kingdom of western Asia Minor located generally east of ancient Ionia in the modern western Turkish provinces of Uşak, Manisa and inland İzmir. Its population spoke an Anatolian language known as Lydian, at its greatest extent, the Kingdom of Lydia covered all of western Anatolia. Lydia was a satrapy of the Achaemenid Persian Empire, with Sardis as its capital, tabalus, appointed by Cyrus the Great, was the first satrap. Lydia was later the name of a Roman province, coins are said to have been invented in Lydia around the 7th century BC. The endonym Śfard survives in bilingual and trilingual stone-carved notices of the Achaemenid Empire and these in the Greek tradition are associated with Sardis, the capital city of King Gyges, constructed during the 7th century BC. The region of the Lydian kingdom was during the 15th-14th centuries part of the Arzawa kingdom, the Lydian language is not part of the Luwian subgroup. An Etruscan/Lydian association has long been a subject of conjecture, however, recent decipherment of Lydian and its classification as an Anatolian language mean that Etruscan and Lydian were not even part of the same language family. The boundaries of historical Lydia varied across the centuries and it was bounded first by Mysia, Caria, Phrygia and coastal Ionia. Later, the power of Alyattes II and Croesus expanded Lydia. Lydia never again shrank back into its original dimensions, the Lydian language was an Indo-European language in the Anatolian language family, related to Luwian and Hittite. It used many prefixes and grammatical particles, Lydian finally became extinct during the 1st century BC. Lydia developed after the decline of the Hittite Empire in the 12th century BC, in Hittite times, the name for the region had been Arzawa. According to Greek source, the name of the Lydian kingdom was Maionia, or Maeonia. Homer describes their capital not as Sardis but as Hyde, Hyde may have been the name of the district in which Sardis was located. Later, Herodotus adds that the Meiones were renamed Lydians after their king Lydus, son of Atys and this etiological eponym served to account for the Greek ethnic name Lydoi. During Biblical times, the Lydian warriors were famous archers, some Maeones still existed during historical times in the upland interior along the River Hermus, where a town named Maeonia existed, according to Pliny the Elder and Hierocles. In Greek myth, Lydia had also adopted the symbol, that also appears in the Mycenaean civilization. Omphale, daughter of the river Iardanos, was a ruler of Lydia, all three heroic ancestors indicate a Lydian dynasty claiming Heracles as their ancestor
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Parian Chronicle
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Parian Marble redirects here, for marble from Paros, see Parian marble. The Parian Chronicle or Parian Marble is a Greek chronology, covering the years from 1582 BC to 299 BC, the first of the sections published by Selden has subsequently disappeared. A further third fragment of inscription, comprising the base of the stele. It has entries from 336/35 to 299/98 BC, the two known upper fragments, brought to London in 1627 and presented to Oxford University in 1667, include entries for the years 1582/81–355/54 BC. The surviving upper chronicle fragment currently resides in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford and it combines dates for events we would consider mythic, such as the Flood of Deucalion with dates we would categorize as historic. For the Greeks, the events of their distant past, such as the Trojan War, in fact the Parian inscriptions spend more detail on the Heroic Age than on certifiably historic events closer to the date the stele was inscribed and erected, apparently during 264/263 BC. The shorter fragment base of the stele, found in 1897, is in a museum on Paros and it contains chronicle entries for the years 336/35–299/98 BC. The major analysis of the Parian Chronicle is that of Felix Jacoby and this appeared in two works, his book Das Marmor Parium published in 1904, and as a part of the Fragmente der griechischen Historiker, first published in 1929. There has been no major study devoted to the stele since that time. The style of the Chronicle, however, is quite uniform, the only exceptions are that in nine out of the 107 extant entries, the name of the archon or king is no longer readable, and in 14 entries the number of elapsed years is similarly effaced. Authors Rodger Young and Andrew Steinmann base their views on three key inferences from the available evidence, 1) The naming of the reigning king or archon in Athens for each entry is consistent with an Athenian provenance of the material. Such framing chronicles are known to have kept in Rome. Young and Steinmann acknowledge several factors make it less plausible the source behind the Parian Chronicle was the state archives of Athens. The first is that there are no examples of writing from Athens that date as early as 1582/81 BC. The critical word here is “general, ” which represents a Greek original for which Selden could read only the last three letters, νῶν, these are the ending of the genitive plural. Jacoby hypothesized the word was an adjective and restored it to κοινῶν, meaning “common, general and this is consistent with Jacoby’s theory for the source of the Chronicle’s documents, namely that the author used a variety of selections from diverse materials available in the third century BC. The Ashmolean Web site then translated this into English as shown above, one other conjecture for the source of the Parian Chronicle’s information is of historical interest. In 1788, Joseph Robertson went to length in arguing that the tablets were of relatively recent date
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Pheidon II
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Pheidon was a king of Argos, Greece in the 7th century BC. At that time, the monarchy was nominal with almost no genuine power, Pheidon seized the throne from the reigning aristocracy. Scholarship has called Pheidons reign a tyranny based on Aristotles definition in politics, Pheidon is said to have lost his life in a faction fight at Corinth, where the monarchy had recently been overthrown. According to tradition he flourished during the first half of the 7th century BC and he ask the Corinthians to send him 1000 of their picked youths, ostensibly to aid him in war, his real intention being to put them to death, but the plot was revealed. Pheidon assisted the Pisatans to expel the Eleian superintendents of the Olympian Games, during his probable reign, the Battle of Hysiae was fought in which the Argives defeated the Spartans. This is also about the period that hoplite warfare was becoming current. It is probable that he was the originator of hoplite phalanx and he may have been the ruler of Argos during the Second Messenian War, in which Argos supported Messenia to revolt from Spartas dominance. Aristotle, in Politics, claims that he changes to land reforms “family plots. The balance between two types of ancient kingship seem to have vague boundaries. The affair of the games has an important bearing on his date, according to this, Pheidon must have flourished during the early part of the 6th century BC. It has therefore been assumed that Herodotus confused two Pheidons, both kings of Argos, but the story of Agaristes chronology is questionable. In this story, Herodotus tells about the marriage contest that took place, where the suitor Hippocleides engages in an immodest dance, but this story of Hippocleides may only be a Greek version of the Indian story of the shameless dancing peacock. Thus, the personages may have been introduced regardless of chronology, according to Leslie Kurke, while the marriage of Agariste was indeed historical, the story in question was added and embellished by Herodotus, and modelled on the Indian tale. On the whole, modern authorities assign Pheidon to the first half of the 7th century, according to Konrad H. Kinzl, Pheidon can be dated in the middle of the sixth century BCE. Hence, unless a later Pheidon is assumed, the statement of Ephorus must be considered unhistorical. No such difficulty occurs in regard to the weights and measures, it is agreed that a system was already in existence in the time of Pheidon. A passage in the Aristotelian Constitution of Athens states that the measures used before the Solonian period of reform were called Pheidonian and he mentions a pheidon would be a jar of olive oil, named from the Pheidonian measures. It is mentioned that Solon reformed these measurements from the 70 drachmae of the Pheidonian mna coins to the 100 drachmae mna coins and this article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh, ed. Pheidon
40.
Argos
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Argos is a city in Argolis, Peloponnese, Greece and one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. It is also a bishopric and present Latin Catholic titular see. It is the biggest town in Argolis and a center for the area. Since the 2011 local government reform it has been part of the municipality of Argos-Mykines, the municipal unit has an area of 138.138 km2. It is 11 kilometres from Nafplion, which was its historic harbour, a settlement of great antiquity, Argos has been continuously inhabited as at least a substantial village for the past 7,000 years. The city is a member of the Most Ancient European Towns Network, a resident of the city of Argos is known as an Argive. However, this term is used to refer to those ancient Greeks generally who assaulted the city of Troy during the Trojan War. Numerous ancient monuments can be found in the city today, the most famous of which is the Heraion of Argos, agriculture is the mainstay of the local economy. The name of the city is ancient and several etymological theories have been proposed as an explanation to its meaning. The most popular one maintains that the name of the city is a remainder from the Pelasgian language, i. e. the one used by the people who first settled in the area, in which Argos meant plain. Alternatively, the name is associated with Argos, the king of the city in ancient times. It is also believed that Argos is linked to the word αργός, which meant white, possibly, according to Strabo, the name could have even originated from the word αγρός by antimetathesis of the consonants. As a strategic location on the plain of Argolis, Argos was a major stronghold during the Mycenaean era. There is evidence of settlement in the area starting with a village about 7000 years ago in the late Neolithic. It was colonized in prehistoric times by the Pelasgian Greeks, since that time, Argos has been continually inhabited at the same geographical location. Its creation is attributed to Phoroneus, with its first name having been Phoronicon Asty, the city is located at a rather propitious area, among Nemea, Corinth and Arcadia. It also benefitted from its proximity to lake Lerna, which, during the Dorian invasion, c.1100 BC, Argos was divided into four neighbourhoods, each of them inhabited by a different phyle. Argos experienced its greatest period of expansion and power under the energetic 7th century BC ruler King Pheidon, under Pheidon, Argos regained sway over the cities of the Argolid and challenged Sparta’s dominance of the Peloponnese
41.
Ancient Greek coinage
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The history of Ancient Greek coinage can be divided into four periods, the Archaic, the Classical, the Hellenistic and the Roman. The Archaic period extends from the introduction of coinage to the Greek world during the 7th century BC until the Persian Wars in about 480 BC, the Greek cities continued to produce their own coins for several more centuries under Roman rule. The coins produced during this period are called Roman provincial coins or Greek Imperial Coins, the word drachm means a handful, literally a grasp. Drachmae were divided into six obols, and six spits made a handful and this suggests that before coinage came to be used in Greece, spits in prehistoric times were used as measures in daily transactions. Because of this aspect, Spartan legislation famously forbade issuance of Spartan coin, and enforced the continued use of iron spits so as to discourage avarice. In addition to its meaning, the word obol was retained as a Greek word for coins of small value. The obol was further subdivided into tetartemorioi which represented 1/4 of an obol and this coin is mentioned by Aristotle as the smallest silver coin. Various multiples of this denomination were also struck, including the trihemitetartemorion valued at 3/8 of an obol and these coins were made of electrum, an alloy of gold and silver that was highly prized and abundant in that area. By the middle of the 6th century BC, technology had advanced, making the production of pure gold, accordingly, King Croesus introduced a bi-metallic standard that allowed for coins of pure gold and pure silver to be struck and traded in the marketplace. The Greek world was divided more than two thousand self-governing city-states, and more than half of them issued their own coins. As such coins circulated widely, other cities began to mint coins to this Aeginetan weight standard of. Athenian coins, however, were struck on the Attic standard, over time, Athens plentiful supply of silver from the mines at Laurion and its increasing dominance in trade made this the pre-eminent standard. These coins, known as owls because of their central design feature, were minted to an extremely tight standard of purity. This contributed to their success as the premier trade coin of their era, tetradrachms on this weight standard continued to be a widely used coin through the classical period. By the time of Alexander the Great and his Hellenistic successors, the Classical period saw Greek coinage reach a high level of technical and aesthetic quality. Larger cities now produced a range of silver and gold coins, most bearing a portrait of their patron god or goddess or a legendary hero on one side. Some coins employed a visual pun, some coins from Rhodes featured a rose, the use of inscriptions on coins also began, usually the name of the issuing city. The wealthy cities of Sicily produced some especially fine coins, the large silver decadrachm coin from Syracuse is regarded by many collectors as the finest coin produced in the ancient world, perhaps ever
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Ancient Chinese coinage
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Ancient Chinese coinage includes some of the earliest known coins. These coins, used as early as the Spring and Autumn period, the Spring and Autumn period also saw the introduction of the first metal coins, however, they were not initially round, instead being either knife shaped or spade shaped. Round metal coins with a round, and then later square hole in the center were first introduced around 350 BCE, the beginning of the Qin Dynasty, the first dynasty to unify China, saw the introduction of a standardised coinage for the whole Empire. Subsequent dynasties produced variations on these round coins throughout the imperial period, ancient Chinese coins are markedly different from coins produced in the west. Chinese coins were manufactured by being cast in molds, whereas western coins were cut and hammered or, in later times. Chinese coins were made from mixtures of metals such copper, tin and lead, from bronze, brass or iron, precious metals like gold. The ratios and purity of the coin metals varied considerably, most Chinese coins were produced with a square hole in the middle. This was used to allow collections of coins to be threaded on a rod so that the rough edges could be filed smooth. Official coin production was not always centralised, but could be spread over many mint locations throughout the country, aside from officially produced coins, private coining was common during many stages of history. Various steps were taken over time to try to combat the private coining and limit its effects, at other times private coining was tolerated. The coins varied in value throughout the history, some coins were produced in very large numbers – during the Western Han, an average of 220 million coins a year were produced. Other coins were of limited circulation and are extremely rare – only six examples of Da Quan Wu Qian from the Eastern Wu Dynasty are known to exist. Occasionally, large hoards of coins have been uncovered, the earliest coinage of China was described by Sima Qian, the great historian of c. While nothing is known about the use of shells as money, gold. They are not found in hoards, and the probability is that all these are in fact funerary items. Archaeological evidence shows that the earliest use of the spade and knife money was in the Spring, as in ancient Greece, socio-economic conditions at the time were favourable to the adoption of coinage. Inscriptions and archaeological evidence shows that cowrie shells were regarded as important objects of value in the Shang Dynasty, in the Zhou period, they are frequently referred to as gifts or rewards from kings and nobles to their subjects. Later imitations in bone, stone or bronze were used as money in some instances
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Bullion
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Bullion is gold bars, silver bars, and other bars or ingots of precious metal. The word bullion comes from the French Minister of Finance under Louis XIII, the value of bullion is typically determined by the value of its precious metals content, which is defined by its purity and mass. It is also weighed extremely accurately, retailers may sometimes market ingots and bars of base metals, such as copper, nickel, and aluminium as bullion, but this is not a widely accepted definition. The specifications of bullion are often regulated by market bodies or legislation, in the European Union, the minimum purity for gold bullion, which is treated as investment gold with regards to taxation, is 99. 5% for gold bullion bars and 90% for bullion coins. The London bullion market is a market for wholesale trading of gold. The London Bullion Market Association coordinates activities of its members and other participants in the London bullion market, the LBMA sets and promotes quality standards for gold and silver bullion bars. The minimum acceptable fineness of the Good Delivery Bars is 99. 5% for gold bars and 99. 9% for silver bars, Bullion coins describe contemporary precious metal coins minted by official agencies for investment purposes. Historically, most currency were in the form of coins, silver. Some bullion coins have been used as currency throughout the 20th century, like the Maria Theresa thaler, however, modern bullion coins generally do not enter common circulation despite having legal tender status and a nominal face value. Some modern bullion coins, such as the gold and silver American eagle, are produced as both business strike and collectible proof and uncirculated versions. Business strikes typically are sold at prices commensurate with their precious metal content, in some cases the grade and mintages of business strike coins can affect their value, so that they are considered numismatic rather than bullion items. A range of market participants is active in the bullion markets, banks, fabricators, refiners. They provide facilities for the refining, melting, assaying, transporting, trading and vaulting of gold, for example, shares of the world’s largest Gold exchange-traded fund, the SPDR Gold Shares represent ownership in vaulted gold bullion. Private individuals use bullion primarily as an investment or potential store of value, Gold bullion and silver bullion are the most important forms of physical precious metals investments. Bullion investments can be considered as insurance against inflation or economic turmoil, compared to numismatic coins, bullion bars or bullion coins can typically be purchased and traded at lower margins and their trading prices are closer to the values of the contained precious metals
