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Prehistoric coins
The first coins to appear in Medway were not used like the
mone
y of
today. The Iron Age hoard of beautiful gold pieces on display in
the Guildhall Museum were items of
treasure, to keep and not to spend. It was only after the Roman
invasion that enough coins were in circulation to make buying
anything with them a practical possibility. Even in later times, up
to the 18th century, the lack of small coinage meant that some
businesses issued their own tokens which could be exchanged for
goods in shops or pubs.
The appearance of Roman coins, with the head of the emperor in
profile surrounded by a Latin inscription, set an example which is
still followed today. Even the materials are familiar, with alloys
of copper, silver and gold used for different denominations. These
early coins, though, were struck by hand using a carefully prepared
die.
Rochester had a mint during the Anglo-Saxon period, licensed to
issue coins with an image of the king on one side and the name of
the moneyer on the other. A number of Rochester silver pennies from
the reign of Aethelred II are on display in the museum, where you
will be able to see a wide variety of British coinage. This
includes the enormous “cartwheel” penny, produced during the reign
of George III in 1797 and one of the first coins to be minted by
machine. You may also come across a penny-farthing but that is
something else entirely.
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