Evaluation of the Present Value of Ancient Coins

Many of the pious bequest policies (Vaghf) !supportFootnotes]-->[1] at present time are denominated by old or ancient coins, the present value of which is not well known. Therefore, fixing the annual custodian fee for Vaghf is quite difficult. Moreover, the difficulty of evaluation of the present value of the dowry the husband has to pay to the bride after the marriage (Mahr) !supportFootnotes]-->[2] has created lots of difficulties for Ministry of Justice. Regarding the methods of minting coins in the past which were not centralized and the coins were “hammer hardened”, they were of different value, different weight and even different names and place of issue. This variety makes the evaluation of the ancient coins very sophisticated. In addition, the evaluation of the present value of the ancient coins which were themselves mediums of measuring the value of other goods is rather a difficult task. For this reason, the correct method of evaluating the present value of these coins is to recognize first the characteristics of these coins, and then selecting the best method of evaluating its present value as considered in this research. !supportFootnotes]--> !supportFootnotes]-->[1]- Vaghf in Islam is the action of keeping a property and using it (or its income) for charity purposes. !supportFootnotes]-->[2]- In Islamic culture and jurisprudence, husband promises an amount of money or property (Mahr) to his bride after the marriage and this bestow is on demand that is to say, whenever the wife asks for it, the husband should hand it out to her, but husband is obliged to hand it out to her in case of divorce.