Gold coins in literature
I am a hobby numismatist and lover of old books and history. Here you will find a number of articles I have written on old coins mentioned in classical literature, sort of footnotes that is required for the full understanding of these readings.
The 1 dollar "liberty head" coin and the Walden
I analyze a passage from Thoreau's Walden about the wages and cost of living in his time, converting US dollars to gold for comparison...
An 1855 $50 gold coin from the shipwreck SS Central America
The SS Central America, also called the "Ship of Gold", sank in a hurricane on 12th September, 1857. Its cargo was tons of gold ingots and a large number of gold coins.
A Louis d'or from the shipwreck Le Chameau
The frigate Le Chameau smashed into rocks and sank in 1725 at the coasts of Nova Scotia, Canada. It carried a cargo of coins and other supplies (eg. gunpowder, etc) for the French colonies in Canada.
The gold of the Parthenos
When Athen was under siege by Demetrius I in 296 BC, Lachares ordered his men to strip gold from the famous statue of Athene, the Parthenos. He struck gold coins from the plates to pay his soldiers. These coins are rare, but still can be found...
The Persuaders! - A Gold Napoleon
An 1971 episode of the very popular TV series, featuring Roger Moore (Brett) and Tony Curtis (Danny) revolves around a cargo of (possibly fake?) gold coins, to be smuggled from France to Italy...
Gold discs, minted in Philadelphia
Western oil companies in Saudi Arabia had to pay royalties in gold, since the Saudi government did not accept paper money. The Philadelphia Mint struck gold bullion coins, called "discs" for this sole purpose in the 1940's...
Ducat hoarding in 20th century Serbia
The Austrian mint still strikes the 1 and 4 ducat gold coins using the 1915 dies. They were very popular in rural Serbia even today as a means of amassing wealth. I found a recent paper about these customs in Serbia, telling the history of a family throughout a century of wars and economic disasters...
Fake fiorino d'oro in the Decameron
The tale of a military officer who bought the right to spend one night with a lady by paying 500 gold florins to her husband, but the coins turned out to be gold-plated popolinos...
Volume of the trade of Venice
One often-stated reason why the Venetian ducat became a widely accepted currency from Sri Lanka to Morocco is that Venice had traded intensively with both arabian and european countries. In this article I quote some sources about the volume of this trade and the yearly output of the Zecca, the Mint of Venice: it produced one million gold ducats a year...
Ali baba and the ashrafis
Most of us have heard the famous tale of Ali baba from the Arabian Nights. Ali baba was a poor man who lived by selling firewood. Once he overheard some robbers who was going to hide their looted treasure in a secret cave. Ali baba sneaks into the cave, and stole the robbers gold: he returns with "sacks of ashrafis"...