Cast coinage refers to

coin A coin is a small, flat (usually depending on the country or value), round piece of metal or plastic used primarily as a medium of exchange or legal tender. They are standardized in weight, and produced in large quantities at a mint in order ...

s made by pouring melted metal into a mold, i.e. casting. It has been used for regular coins, particularly in East Asia, but also other areas on a smaller scale (e.g. the ancient Mediterranean world). The method differs from the current mode of coin production, which is done by striking coin blanks that have been cut out of metal sheets. The method has also been used by forgers. Traditional Far Eastern cast coins—so-called '

cash In economics, cash is money in the physical form of currency, such as banknotes and coins. In bookkeeping and financial accounting, cash is current assets comprising currency or currency equivalents that can be accessed immediately or near-im ...

coins'—are the most famous example of cast coinage, and were issued from the 4th century BC until circa 1912, predominantly in

bronze Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper, commonly with about 12–12.5% tin and often with the addition of other metals (including aluminium, manganese, nickel, or zinc) and sometimes non-metals, such as phosphorus, or metalloids suc ...

brass Brass is an alloy of copper (Cu) and zinc (Zn), in proportions which can be varied to achieve different mechanical, electrical, and chemical properties. It is a substitutional alloy: atoms of the two constituents may replace each other wi ...

iron Iron () is a chemical element with symbol Fe (from la, ferrum) and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, right in ...

. Traditional Far Eastern coins were generally cast base metal coins, although

silver Silver is a chemical element with the symbol Ag (from the Latin ', derived from the Proto-Indo-European ''h₂erǵ'': "shiny" or "white") and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it exhibits the highest electrical ...

and

gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile ...

bars were also manufactured, e.g. Chinese sycee, Japanese obans and kobans, and Vietnamese lang and tien. Cast potins circulated in Kent from around 100 BC to around 50 BC. At a point during the first century of the Christian era, cast bronze coins were produced in Dorset with archaeological evidence pointing towards Hengistbury Head as the source. By AD 200, cast copies of silver

denarii The denarius (, dēnāriī ) was the standard Roman silver coin from its introduction in the Second Punic War to the reign of Gordian III (AD 238–244), when it was gradually replaced by the antoninianus. It continued to be minted in very ...

were being produced in a number of areas of Britain. While these may have been straightforward forgeries the context in which some of the moulds have been found suggest there may have been at least some elements of semi officialdom.

References

Numismatics Currency production methods {{Coin-stub