Oldest dated coin by metal

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Thought this might be an interesting thread which would fit in well with a few others like it that are floating around on the forum.

I myself unfortunately have no contributions to give as my knowledge only extends over a more modern period of coinage. However I am keen to hear what coins you can come up with.

I will list the obvious metal types I can think of but I am sure there will be some I have missed so please let me know and I will add them to the list.

Now just to to be clear I consider a coin to have no less then 50% purity to be considered as a definite metal type.

So here are the metals I have come up with so far.

Gold

silver

bronze

copper

aluminium

Nordic gold
A couple more precious metals for which I can provide the first answers:

Platinum:
1828, in the Russian Empire: https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces23166.html
There's a record of a 1820 British trial strike in platinum but it doesn't seem to be listed on Numista yet.

Palladium:
1966, by Sierra Leone: https://coins.www.collectors-society.com/WCM/CoinCustomSetView.aspx?s=3430
(also doesn't seem to be on Numista yet!) ;)
My guess is the oldest nickel coin would be the Swiss 20 Rappen of 1850?, even though the Americans may claim that 1866 dated nickels are the oldest.

The oldest cupronickel would be some of the low value Belgian coins of the 1860s.

Depends on dating systems too, there are ancient coins that can be dated solely by the ruler on them and if that is the case, Staters of Cyrus from the 520s BC would be the oldest. Many Hellenistic and Roman coins can be dated solely through the emperor and what appears on the Obverse (Judaea Capta 70AD, Britannia Sesterius 46AD etc)

I have heard of Arab silver dirhams and gold dinars dated as early as 42AH (663AD).

The earliest western dated coin in Arabic Numerals is that famous silver thaler or grosch of Bern or Basel dated 1484. Many European kingdoms, cities and principalities all started issuing coins with Arabioc dates in the late 15th and 16th centuries. Some 15th century "4s" look like ribbons, but the 5's in coins even dated like 1501 look like real 5's.

Generally Northern Europe adopted it quicker and Southern Europe was slow with most countries only dating coins after the 1550s. Spain used partial or no dates on some "cob' silver as late as the 1750s. It was not until about 1760 that "cobo de barra" or cob coins were fully replaced by milled coins. In 1732 most high values were milled, but some were not and often a doubloon comes up with numbers like "23" meaning 1723 for instance.

Earliest dated English coin is a series of Gold Ryals of Edward VI dated MDXLVIII (1548) and in Arabic Numerals, Silver Shilling, Half Crowns, and Crown dated 1551, although Universal dating only goes back to 1667 as some hammered coinage from the Elizabethan to early King Charles II era was undated. Most earlier English coins back to Saxon eras can be dated by Mintmarks on the to within 2 years in most cases.

Earliest North American dated coins would be 1652 Massachusetts leaf shillings.

In New Zealand our oldest coins are only 1933, so that is as early as they go for base silver and 1940 for bronze.

Australia's earliest dated "Coins" are 1813 Holey Dollars and Dumps, made out of Spanish silver dollars. Then its Adelaide pound patterns of 1852 and regular Gold coinage from 1853 to 1929. their earliest own coins are 1910 for silver and 1911 for bronze.
I love coins
1499 Groschen from Basel with the ribbon style 4
https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces114345.html

And this 1492 Dicken has the standard numeral 4, you can see how its evolved from the ribbon 4
https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces101471.html

https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces101467.html Very silmilar to the 1484 coin, but there is not an image of the coin on Numista.

Generally for silver the Swiss Cantons throw up many of these early dated pieces.

After 1518 there was an explosion in large silver coins through Central Europe and Germany with the discovery of mass silver deposits at Joachimsthal, Czechia - Thal is where Thaler comes from and the word Dollar is descended from Thaler, meaning of the valley in German.

Around the same time, the Spanish were expoliting masses of Gold and Silver in the Americas and large silver coins came out of their treasuries and mints in America and Spain.
I love coins
Quote: "Moneytane"​Around the same time, the Spanish were expoliting masses of Gold and Silver in the Americas and large silver coins came out of their treasuries and mints in America and Spain.
​I should add that the Spanish Main contained one of the greatest natural supplies of platinum of the time; but in 1735, fearing it could be used to make counterfeit gold coins (it was), a royal decree ordered all of Spain's supply of platinum dumped into the sea. Talk about lack of hindsight (although at least they didn't import so much of that that they devalued the European value of the metal like they did with gold and silver)! :°

For Aluminium:
The metal itself wasn't discovered until 1824, and at one point it was such a novelty that the wealthy would dine off aluminium plates instead of silverware (didn't age too well!). It took until the end of the 19th century for it to become a feasible coinage metal, and an 1883 pattern 5 francs for Madagascar made by the Monnaie de Paris exists: https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces79827.html

But the earliest circulating coins are the British East Africa issues from 1907:
https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces33342.html
Thanks guys all vey interesting.

Here also a German coin dated 1494 https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces135574.html some others might also bear a date from around this time.
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There are dated european coins from the 13th century.
An example of a dated 1405 silver coin :
https://www.ma-shops.com/laurensschulman/item.php?id=4446&lang=en

But I know for sure there are earlier...
There is a book
https://www.amazon.com/Early-Dated-Coins-Europe-1234-1500/dp/0871846004
I remember that 1234 Danish coin! It's going to be interesting to see who gets the crown for earliest dated gold and silver; my guess is on one of those Islamic caliphate coins.

And here's an interesting addition to the list; Antimony!
It was used for a 10 cents (1 Jiao) coin for Guizhou province, China in 1931:
https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces42344.html
Quote: "Choucas"​There are dated european coins from the 13th century.
​An example of a dated 1405 silver coin :
https://www.ma-shops.com/laurensschulman/item.php?id=4446&lang=en

​But I know for sure there are earlier...
​There is a book
https://www.amazon.com/Early-Dated-Coins-Europe-1234-1500/dp/0871846004
​Cool, I got confused as I thought they meant the date was in AD and in Arabic Numerals rather than Roman. I agree Roman dated coins going back into the Medieval era.

Not dated, but a special coin that comes to mind is the Agnus Dei penny of Ethelred the Unready, it is believed this coin came out in AD 1000 to commemorate the millenium!
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How about

Nickel
Tin
Lead
Iron
Zinc
What? Me Worry
Quote: "neilithicman"​How about

Nickel
​Tin
​Lead
​Iron
​Zinc
​I'll take Nickel; the first "pure" nickel coin appears to be the Swiss 20 Rappen coin first issued in 1881 (and it's still going, even though its composition changed a couple of times since).

(American 5 cent coins, despite being called commonly called "nickels", are actually CuNi, being only 25% nickel, an alloy that has been used since 1866)
Verry good question, Ill let the more intelligent members answer this one.
I was surprised to find out the first country to have a Stainless Steel coin was Albania in 1939 followed by Vatican City in 1940.
Quote: "Holindaze"​I was surprised to find out the first country to have a Stainless Steel coin was Albania in 1939 followed by Vatican City in 1940.
​I thought Italy had some early-ish stainless steel coins.
What? Me Worry
Quote: "neilithicman"
Quote: "Holindaze"​I was surprised to find out the first country to have a Stainless Steel coin was Albania in 1939 followed by Vatican City in 1940.
​​I thought Italy had some early-ish stainless steel coins.
​Those came out the same year the Albanian coins did, in 1939; previously the Italian non-silver issues had been made of nickel since the lira's inflation at the end of WWI.

The same designs were created in 1936, but those first issues are made of nickel, and are generally much scarcer, presumably due to wartime melting and recycling.

Earliest dated silver coin that has Roman numerals.


Earliest dated gold coin.

.
Earliest dated copper coin.
Titanium:
https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces27559.html
Oldest lead coin in this article

https://coinweek.com/featured-news/heavier-metal-ancient-coins-made-of-lead/

For those not willing to read it - It's a tetradrachm (4 Drachme) of Syracuse and Akragas from 420BC.

Much Roman coinage contained 30% lead and it mentions an Egyptian statuette from 3000BC of it.

None have firm dates, but going by rulers - Coins of the Numidian King Massinissa date from the 150sBC.
I love coins
Scientific article about Coin metals and elements

http://www.coins-of-the-uk.co.uk/pics/metal.html

It mentions oldest dated Iron coins are 1943 in Finland, but I am sure some iron coins came out of Germany or German occupation in WW1. Iron searching was hard due to definition of Iron as Iron age coins.

Tin coins were first made out of an alloy called Speculum by Belgians around 200BC

The earliest proper tin coins are Harrington fathings and halfpence made in the 1590s through to 1620s.

The article is full of heaps of useful info and will answer the questions here.
I love coins
Nordic Gold was started very late. developed in Sweden for new high value 10 Kronor coins issued in 1991

https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces2750.html

And proven by Wikipedia article

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_krona

Nordic Gold was also used for 5 Kronor coins from 2016 and was adopted in 1999 for the Migher value Eurocent coins 10c - 50c and the rings in the Euro pieces.
I love coins
Actually the oldest cupronickel coins are a series of Bactrian coin types from something like 200 BC (I don't recall the exact dates offhand, and the types in question are not on Numista).
Obviously, those coins were not actually dated (many contemporary coins from other places were dated, but they weren't cupronickel).

IIRC, the oldest iron coins are from ancient and medieval China; apparently some of the medieval Chinese types actually had dates.
Modern iron coins go back to at least 1915, though I hadn't exhaustively checked. Some patterns are older.

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