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There are a couple of theories to why coins have dates. The first theory is due to the ego of the kings/emperors who enjoyed bragging that they spent X years on the throne and thus dated their coins in the X year of the king/emperor Y. The other theory is the debasement of coins could start in one year and allow government agents to know if a coin was debased based on the year. Debasement was an early means of inflating the currency by replacing precious metals in the coin with base metals. For example, a coin that used to contain 90% silver might be reduced to 75% silver allowing the government to strike 15% more coins to pay off debts because it would take the masses some time to realize that the coin was only worth 85% of the non-debased coin because the size of the coin and colour would be nearly unchanged.

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12y ago

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