Учреждения высшего образования
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EARLY COINSThe first coins were made in Turkey around 100 ВС, but paper notes didn't appear at the same time. They weren't produced until 1400 years later — In China. This report looks at the history of modern money's early ancestors. The ancient kingdom of Lydia was in the country now known as Turkey. That's where the first coins — called "staters" - were produced around 2,700 years ago. They were made of electrum (a mixture of silver and gold) and had a lion's head stamped on them. This snowed that they were official Lydian coins and made them easy to recognize. It also meant that each coin's value was "guaranteed", so it didn't need to be weighed. Not only that - there were lots of different values, too. Lydian people used coins worth one-sixth, one-twenty-fourth and even one-ninety-sixth of a stater. The idea of a metal money system with fixed values, a clear identity, was successful. So successful that it soon spread to other countries. By 600 ВС, in fact coins were used all around the Mediterranean region. Greek coins of this period are particularly beautiful. Some are marked with the .heads of gods and scenes from ancient myths. Others have pictures of objects or animals on them, such as owls, vases or beetles. These show which part of Greece the coins came from. Athenian 'silver owl', coins, for example, soon became famous all over Europe. The first king to have his portrait on a coin came from Greece, too. Alexander the Great died in 33 ВС. Coins with his face on them appeared the following year. Questions: 1. What was the name of the country? 2. What occupied the territory of Turkey? 3. What objects were stamped on ancient coins? (part 4) EARLY NOTESToday's paper money is produced and controlled by governments through a system of banks. That's why we talk about bank-notes. Originally, though, paper money had nothing to do with banks because 1. Metal coins were heavy. It was difficult to carry and use large numbers of them. 2. They were easy to steal. 3. China only had limited amounts of precious metals. It couldn't use them to make coins. To solve these problems, goldsmiths and silversmiths of the Tang dynasty (618—907) began to produce special receipts. These were printed notes, which showed that their customers owned a certain amount of money. The result? Suddenly it was possible to do business with paper instead of using metal coins. The oldest Chinese notes which still survive come from the Ming dynasty (1368—1644). They're made of tree bark and some of them are very large. The introduction of notes like these changed economic history. And not just in China, paper money soon became popular in Europe, too. For a long time, though, it wasn't made and controlled by governments. In fact, the first official European bank notes (issued by the Swedish Stockholm Bank) didn't appear until 1661. Questions: 1. Why did early notes appear? 2. What was the first country to use them? (part 5) COINSModern-day coins are produced in special factories called mints. Before any coin can be produced, though, it has to be designed. This is done by an artist and the design is usually very complex. Why? To make it harder for criminals to copy. Once the design has been completed and approved, a large plaster model of the coin is made. This has the design cut into it with metal cools. The model is then attached to a reducing machine. What does that do? Well, it copies the artist's work onto a small piece of very hard steel. Each coin needs two dies — one for the front, one for the back. These are then fitted another machine — the coining press. This is where the coins themselves are actually produced. In the past it was common for coins to be made of gold or silver. These days, metal money consists of cheaper metals — for example copper, nickel, zinc or tin. To make money, these are first heated and then mixed together in the right amounts. After that, the mixture is rolled into long, thick blocks which are (a) softened (b)cut into coin-shaped pieces called "blanks". It's these blanks which are squashed (under enormous pressure and very quickly) between the two dies on the coining press to make coins. Questions: 1. Why is it necessary to make a plaster design? 2. How are coins usually produced? (part 6) NOTES There are four main elements in the production of bank-notes: • design • paper • ink • printing. Let's look at them in that order. Design. Like coins, notes are also designed by artists. In the case of notes, though, the designs are much more complex. Each one contains thousands of tiny lines. This is done deliberately to make the notes as hard as possible to copy. First, the artist produces a sketch. Then, when that has been accepted, he or she engraves the design onto a steel plate. The design is engraved back-to-front with special, extremely sharp tools. Why back-to-front? So that when it's printed, it will be the right way round on the • notes themselves. Paper bank-notes have to last a long time. Because of this fact they're made with extra strong paper which contains cotton. But that's not the only unusual thing of back-note paper. In most cases it also contains a very thin piece of metal which runs from top to bottom, faint drawings. (These can only be seen clearly if you hold them up to day light.) Ink. The inks printed on bank-notes aren't used anywhere else. They're specially made and lots of different colours are combined in each note. Again this is done for reasons of security. Printing. Three different kinds of printing are needed to produce any bank-note. The first is called intaglio and prints the main elements in the design (faces, objects, etc.), Next, all the complex patterns in the background are printed by a process called lithography. Finally, a third system, letterpress, adds the serial number(which you can usually find in the bottom right-hand corner). This has to be done separately because each note needs an individual number. Questions: 1. What are the four principal elements in making banknotes? 2. What does a designer do to produce coins & notes? 3. What is done for security? |
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