Importance of Numismatics

Still existing today, in the information age, numismatics plays a fundamental role in allowing us to couple and know precise and specific data on the different types of currency or banknotes that have been used in certain periods of the history and regions. In this sense, this activity is vital for the understanding of historical and economic aspects of both past and present societies.

The knowledge of the currencies allows to know central economic elements of the functioning of a society

This area can be identified as the study, analysis, compilation and description of the different types of coins that may have existed in times past or that are produced in the present. Although there are no areas within the Economics portfolios that have to do with this activity, since it is more than anything a hobby that can be carried out by those who are interested in these subjects, the usefulness of numismatics and the knowledge that can be produced from coin collecting is extremely interesting.

Who knows how to work with this type of information can provide important data to historians, either to teach what type of exchanges or economic actions are they took at a certain time, what material the coins and paper money were made of, what was their value, what designs were used to represent power, etc

The whites and the darks of an activity that depends on human societies

As with many aspects of the historical study of a society past, numismatics has against it the fact that it can only exist for those societies that have produced their own coin, at the same time that it can also only analyze coins or pieces of them that reach us until the present.

It is believed that this activity began in the time of the Ancient Roman empire, being this the first State that formulated its own official currency. Due to the enormous extension that this great empire came to have, consolidating a single and valid currency throughout the territory was of central importance. While in the Middle Ages the trade disappeared at least in a large part of Europe, metal production would explode from the 16th century when Europe would meet America and could benefit from all the precious metals that were hidden in the mountains and that they would explode for long centuries.

Images: Fotolia – Comugnero Silvana / Joseesp