Radet attributed the earliest coins to Gyges and imagined them as having been struck when Gyges was already on the throne[732]. He wrote however before Enkomi, Knossos, and Ephesus had suggested the possibility of an earlier date for the earliest coins, and he does not consider the possibility that it may have been quite as much a case of the coins making the tyrant as the tyrant making the coins. No certainty is to be looked for on this point, but for arriving at the greatest available probability it will be well for a moment to turn to the brilliant and convincing account of the last stages in the evolution of metal coinage published by Lenormant and developed by Babelon. Lenormant’s account of the circumstances in which stamped pieces of precious metal of definite weight first came into circulation cannot be given better than in his own words: [Sidenote: Lenormant that they were private issues.] Pour la commodité du commerce, auquel ils servent d’instrument habituel d’échange, on donne à ces lingots des poids exacts ... de ½ à 10 taels en or, de ½ à 100 taels en argent. Mais leur circulation et leur acceptation n’ont aucun caractère légal et obligatoire. L’autorité publique n’a point à y intervenir et ne leur donne aucune garantie. Ces lingots ne portent aucune empreinte si ce n’est en certains cas un poinçonnement individuel, simple marque d’origine et de fabrique, qui quelquefois inspire assez de confiance pour dispenser de la vérification du titre du métal, lorsque c’est celle d’un négociant assez honorablement connu. La facilité avec laquelle on accepte le lingot à tel ou tel poinçon tient donc entièrement au crédit personnel de celui qui l’a marqué[733].