World’s Oldest Gold Coin Discovered in Bulgaria

If you are a rare coin junkie like us, you’ll love this bit of recent news: a 2,750-year-old gold coin has been discovered near Bulgaria’s Black Sea coast and is believed to be the world’s oldest gold coin.

The Bulgarian new agency BTA reported the news on September 9, recounting the remarkable story of how a scuba diver accidentally discovered the rare find. The diver was swimming in the shallow waters near the resort town of Sozòpol in Eastern Bulgaria, when by chance he noticed the gleaming of the coin.

After bringing it to shore, the diver reportedly passed it along to the head of the National History Museum in Sofia, Bulgaria’s capital and largest city, where a numismatist confirmed the age and specifications of the coin.

The coin is apparently not solid gold, but made of electrum—a naturally occurring alloy of gold and silver, used to mint some of the oldest coins in human history. It is believed that this particular coin was minted in the ancient kingdom of Lydia in nearby Anatolia, sometime in the second half of the seventh century B.C.E.

Sozòpol is an ancient seaside outpost of the Greek city state of Miletus, with the first settlements dating back to the Bronze Age. Most imperial coins from that era in existence today begin around the fourth century BC and continue up until the first half of the third century AD – however, as the National History Museum notes, this newly uncovered coin is the first of its kind found in Bulgaria.”

The coin weighs 0.63 grams and has a denomination of 1/24 of a stater.

Determining the World’s Oldest Coin

Distinguishing the world’s oldest coin is no easy task, and the process is hotly debated by scholars around the globe. For starters, much depends on different interpretations of the definition of the word “coin”—all coins are money but not all money is coinage.

Then, interpretation of archeological and numismatic evidence must be taken into account.

And lastly, how much evidence you feel is necessary before accepting a particular theory plays a large part in what coin you might consider “oldest.”

It is, however, widely-accepted that Lydian coins are among the world’s most antiquated, being a country in close proximity to both the ancient Mesopotamian civilizations and Greek colonies—two of the oldest and advanced human civilizations known to scholars.

Undoubtedly, more information about this exciting find in Bulgaria will surface (just as the coin did) in the coming months as experts around the world get a peek at the world’s oldest coin.

Be sure to check out the Provident Metals online store to enlarge your coin collection with these beautiful and rare gold and silver coins.

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