Robert Kokotailo operates Calgary Coin Gallery both as a physical coinshop in Calgary, and as a virtual one at http://www.cadvision.com/calcoins/home.html where visitors can view and learn about coins from the ancient and medieval worlds of the Greeks, Romans, Chinese, the Crusades and many other cultures.
The following ten coin sites provide a wealth of information and can lead you to a good basic understanding of how coinage evolved in the ancient and medieval world.
1. A Comparative chronology of money from ancient times to the present day This site, by Rod and Glyn Davies, is a good general outline of the history of coinage from its very beginnings to the modern day, including all geographical areas, and is an obvious place to begin a study of the history of coins.
2. Grifter Tom Mallon's site offers an excellent overview of the ancient and medieval coins from the Middle East, India and Asia, including some very obscure cultural areas (every wonder what a Hephthalite was, or what kind of coins he used?). Images are provided for many coins that collectors encounter but can seldom identify. This site may help one solve the mystery of just what is Grampa's old coin.
3. Coinage of India Nupam Mahajan PhD has created an interesting and easy to follow history of coins used on the Indian subcontinent, from the earliest ancient issues up to the modern day. Well illustrated throughout, this site makes sense out of a very complex series.
4. Early Islamic coins (AD 690-1500) The story of medieval Islamic is complex and generally poorly understood by most western collectors. This site, by James N. Roberts, takes some of the mystery out of this series. It is well illustrated, which is a great help with coins that seldom have any design, and have inscriptions written in Arabic characters.
5. Chinese coins home page Valadimir Beljaev's extensive site is devoted to the study of Chinese, Japanese and Korean coins, charms, tokens and paper money from all periods. Links are provided to many other sites devoted to this same area of interest.
6. Doug Smith's ancient Greek and Roman coins Ancient Greek and Roman coins are some of the most popular areas of collecting. This site provides a great deal of practical information for the novice collector starting into this fascinating field.
7. Dead Romans This site is devoted to the study and understanding of the ancient Romans, with good introductions to various aspects of ancient Roman coinage.
8. Coriosolite expert system An in-depth look by John Hooker at a single series of ancient Celtic coins. This site takes you through the process of identifying a Coriosolite coin to the exact part of the series, and provides detailed explanations of the imagery on the coins and the myths from which they were derived. Even if you are not interested in Coriosolite coinage, this site is worth visiting to get a feel for the depth of study that can go into any ancient coin, as well as to see a superb job of Web site construction.
9. Numism-l This is the sign-up page for a discussion group devoted to the study of ancient and medieval coins, with a focus on coins of the Greek and Roman worlds. With more than 400 members, some of whom are the recognized masters of their specialties, this is the place to ask those questions to which one could never before find answers. Note that only coins issued before AD 1454 may be discussed on this list.
10. Rune's ancient coins page In itself this site does not have much information about coins, but is still a useful coin-related site. Here, you'll find hundreds of links to coin sites all over the world, where a wealth of information is available about all aspects of coin collecting.
-Keith Schengili-Robert
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