Heads & Tales

For some 2700 years we have used coins to pay our debts and claim our dues. We have minted trillions of the little metal discs. Even the invention of paper money hardly slowed their proliferation. Indeed, coins made of gold continued to underpin the finances of the world until the twentieth century, but from that eminence the descent has been precipitous. It is safe to predict that sometime in our century coins will cease to circulate as currency. Our pockets will be the lighter but so will our connection to the past. We will have dispensed with something which for half of recorded history has preserved in hard copy, sometimes uniquely, an account of our doings. This book is a valedictory survey. It follows the story of coins from conception through substance to shadow. Presenting on average a tale for each generation since the beginning, it celebrates the rise and chronicles the demise of a remarkable invention.

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