The coins of ancient Corfu depict its history as well as the commercial relations it had developed with other regions. At the end of the 6th c. BC Corfu, gaining its independence from the Metropolis - Corinth, established its own mint and minted its own coins, which shows that at that particular moment they were at their maximum economic and commercial prosperity.
The earliest coins of Corfu appeared in a hoard found in Taranto, Italy, and another found in Assuyt, Egypt, reflecting the island's extensive trade with the Late Archaic Mediterranean world. Early Corfu coins were found in Corfu in a hoard containing 158 silver staters and a drachma dating to the early 6th century. BC The type of the early Corfu coins has in the main face a cow nursing a calf, possibly copying the Euboean coins, as a remnant of the first colonization of the city by the Euboeans. On the reverse they bear a concave floral motif known as the 'Gardens of Alcinous'. At the beginning of the 4th c. BC a variety of monetary types appeared and during the second half of the 4th c. BC.
Plenty of Corinthian and Corfu coins of the 4th c. BC they contained the hoards of 510 and 506 silver coins that were recently, in 1996 and 1997, respectively discovered in the Paleopolis area and in Figareto in Kanoni. However, the main monetary production was the minting of copper coins during the 3rd, 2nd and 1st centuries. BC After the end of the Hellenistic period until the 3rd c. AD, the city's mint was transferred to Kassiopi and from 270 AD. issued a single coin in typology and metrology for the entire Roman territory.
Editor: Fotini Anastasopoulou