The invention of coins is shrouded in mystery. Coins as we think of them today were first used as a method of payment around the 6th or 5th century BCE. According to the historian Herodotus, King Croesus of Lydia was “the first to strike and use coins of gold and silver.” But, Aristotle claimed that the first coins were minted by the wife of King Midas of Phrygia. We may never know which is true.