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The first coins to appear
in the Western world were issued by the Indians and the Ionian Greeks in the
eighth century B. C. These coins, which were made of electrum, a natural
combination of gold and silver, were irregular in weight and quality. The pure
gold and silver coins with related values which appeared during the reign of
Croesus (560 -546 B. C. ) provide the first un doubted evidence of standard
coinage by state authority. The coins were not perfectly shaped, however, for
they were struck with a hand wielded hammer. The trend toward complete
mathematical symmetry did not, in fact, begin until the coining press, invented
by Leonardo da Vinci in the sixteenth century, was generally used in the middle
of the seventeenth century.
One should not assume, however, that
only machine made coins are prized for their workmanship. The silver dekadrachm
from Syracuse, struck about 413 B. C. , is considered one of
A. available in quantity
B. inferior in workmanship
C. irregular in shape and size
D. made out of inexpensive metal
