NUMISMATICS

(From the Greek vipiaua, Latin nummus, a coin.) The science of coins and medals. The distinction between these cla es of objects is, in modern times, that the coin is struck for the purpose of circulation as money: the medal not as a piece of money, but as a token commemorative of some person or event. But ancient coins termed, in common language, medals. The parts of a coin or medal are, the obverse or face, containing genernlly the head, bust, or figure of the sovereign or person n whose lioionr the medal was struck, or some emblematic figure in the coins of commonwealths; and the revere, containing virions figures or words. The words around the border of the coin form what is termed the legend, those In the mid oleO i the inscription; when occupying the837lower ex- [s. 851]