I have always wondred why coins are invariably round
In ancient
Greece, the reason for a coin becoming round was the way the blank was produced: a small piece of solid gold or silver was flattened, before the coin was hammered. When doing that with a tiny piece of metal, you get a round shape. This method of making blanks persisted until the 7th century AD (Sceatta's were made that way)
Another important aspect about
money is that one recognizes it as
money. This could have been the reason for rigid conservatism for centuries, making
round coins. In Europe, the vast majority of coins have
always been round, that is, since 650BC.
A
third reason that I can think of is user-friendlyness... When the coin is in the pocket near to your skin, you don't want
sharp edges. In the Netherlands before the war we
had a square Stuiver, its edges were rounded. I show one of
bubba's finds on MBF below..
Lx
