I’m aware historians have long claimed that the ancient Lydians invented coinage (I also used to collect coins, although I suspect not as studiously as you), based on the fact that (i) that’s what the Ancient Greeks believed and (ii) the oldest gold and silver coins that have been found were from ancient Lydia. However, isn’t it possible that the Greeks did not know about Egyptian coins, and that modern scholars did not recognize Egyptian coins as such because they assumed that they must have been something else?
As for use of coins becoming widespread had the ancient Egyptians invented them, that wouldn’t necessarily be the case. I’m sure that there were lots of things developed by the ancient Egyptians that surrounding cultures never adopted (mummification comes to mind), and the same could be true for coins, especially if the Egyptians themselves abandoned their use a few decades or centuries after they invented them. If that was the case, then the Lydians would have “invented” coinage just as much as if the Egyptians had never minted coins, since the Lydians would have developed the idea without any influence from the Egyptians.
Think of our own use of paper currency—we used it during the Revolutionary period, abandoned it, and didn’t bring it back until the Civil War. Couldn’t the ancient Egyptians have used coins during a period of scarcity (when there wasn’t enough grain or whatever to be bartered) and then their use eventually fell out of favor? It’s certainly possible.
Or you’re correct and they’re forgeries. But if they are, how would you explain the existence of hundreds of similar ancient coin-like objects in Egyptian museums (assuming that the article is correct about that)? Surely those wouldn;t all be forgeries as well.
I’ll know it’s true when I hear it from George Noory :-)