Percy Gardner’s A History of Ancient Coinage is an outstanding work on ancient numismatics covering the period between 700 BC and 300 BC. It gives in detail the development of ancient coinage and is based mainly on the Greek coinage during this important period of ancient history. In the present work, Gardner has divided the period of early coinage into two parts, the first covering period upto 480 BC and the second between 480 and 300 BC. His approach to the subject is different from the early writers in as much as he has discussed the coinage of the cities in groups rather than separately and has traced the lines of trade influence from district to district thereby discerning the reasons why particular coin standards found acceptance in one locality or another. He has supplemented the material by including the history of Greek and Asiatic and Italian coinages as a continuous activity. The work is divided into three parts. In the Introduction, Gardner has discussed Greek trade-routes, classes of trades, bankers, early mutual relations of precious metals, rights of coinage, monetary alliances, mother-city and colony, standard currencies, monometallism and bimetallism, dating of Greek coins, hoards and fabric. In the next two parts is discussed the coinage of early Greek cities including those areas which became a part of the Hellenistic empire, besides a chapter on the coins of Phillip and Alexander. In the eleven plates are illustrated the important coin types with detailed explanation of each in the index to plates. A detailed General Index is also appended at the end of the volume for easy reference.
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