Details - but not grading

[RWB]

In another thread CaptHenway said:

 

And RWB, I love details like this! Never heard that the diameter was metric like the weight, and that multiple coins could be used as a measuring device, like the French ten centimes.

 

Taking that comment as inspiration, here are a couple more pieces of numismatic trivia. These can be used in a short club presentation, to confuse colleagues at work, or mixed with lard to patch a gap in you log house for the winter.

 

The Coinage Act of 1873 changed the weight of subsidiary silver coins. The primary reason for this was so that two half-dollars would exactly equal the French 5 franc silver coin. That made U.S. silver comply with the Latin Monetary Union specification, although not with the stated denomination.

 

In the 19th Century France and the U.S. were said to have “bimetallic” currency systems based on gold and silver. Actually, France had a “dual metallic” system with one set of standards for gold coins and another set for silver. Conversely, the U.S. had a bimetallic standard expressed in both gold and silver – which was, of course, impossible to enforce in the real world.

 

The Coinage Act of 1873 dropped the dollar from the list of U.S. coins. Among the reasons for doing this was that Henry Linderman, George Dunning and others wanted to replace it with a smaller dollar based on the French 5 franc standard. They hoped the smaller coin would circulate, thus relieving public pressure to print paper $1, $2, and other small denomination notes. The idea failed because U.S. silver producers wanted a large dollar so they could sell more silver. Hence the Bland-Allison [silver charity] Act of 1878.

 

[We don’t hear much of George Dunning these days, but in the late 1860s he was very influential – until caught with his hand in the till to the tune of $115,000 at the NY Assay Office. More will be found in the next issue of the Journal of Numismatic Research.]

 

[BillJones]

Thank you for posting that information Roger. I always though that the reason for increasing the weight of the dime, quarter and half dollar slightly in 1873 was to bring them up to an even weight according to the Metric System. This had to do with the dreams of developing an international coinage that could circulate across borders. The most overt move toward this, I thought, were the $4 gold or "Stella" pattern coins.

 

BTW there was no way the bi-metallic system could have ever worked. There is no magic ratio between the prices for gold and silver that would ever be a constant. One or the other would be out of balance with the other, the odd metal out would be out of circulation because of its melt value. This was a lesson that some 19th and early 20th century politicians never learned.

[DWLange]

Our attempts to ape the Latin Monetary Union played havoc with our coinage for much of the 1860s and '70s. When it was finally determined to be impractical, there were no more Metric experiments. Passage of the Bland-Allison Act in 1878 sent a clear message that politics would always trump reason when it came to coinage matters. Sadly, nothing has changed since that time. Our coinage system is almost completely broken, consisting mostly of denominations that don't circulate at all or are too valueless to be anything more than a nuisance.

 

It was all for naught, since the Latin Monetary Union collapsed in the 1920s as a consequence of World War I. That event had led to the near total discontinuance of gold coinage by most of the western world and a temporary suspension by the USA. From that point onward gold coins of all nations effectively became bullion coinage alone.

 

Britain tried to override this truth by restoring the pound to its pre-war value when it resumed coining of the sovereign in 1925, and the resulting deflation led to economic depression, wage cuts and a nationwide general strike. That episode was an important lesson that ultimately led FDR to take us off the gold standard in 1933.

 

Though the USA's economy was strong enough to maintain the value of the dollar at a point which would allow gold to circulate at face value in theory, gold coins were effectively removed from general circulation after 1916. They continued to be made, but no one was getting a half eagle as change during the 1920s. By the beginning of the 1930s the lesser gold denominations had been terminated, and the larger ones were selling at a slight premium.

[RWB]

The next JNR issue is devoted to the various international coinage concepts: Barclay’s Coinage Experiments • Bickford $10 • International Coinage • Goloid & Metric Patterns • Cometallic Money, etc.

 

[Mr. Smith Guesser]

BTW there was no way the bi-metallic system could have ever worked. There is no magic ratio between the prices for gold and silver that would ever be a constant.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that the gold:silver price ratio was originally based on estimates of the Earth's resources.

 

But, of course, a pure estimate of Earthly resources doesn't factor in the economic feasibility of actually mining and processing the metals. NOAA says that there is about 13 billionths of a gram of gold in each liter of seawater. But it would currently cost more to produce than the product would be worth.

[RWB]

Yep. It varied with who guessed, and when they guessed. Mr. Smith's Guess might differ from Mr. Jones' Guess, Jr. (your turn on the anagram...)

 

The ancient ratio was 1:10; 1:14.5 in the 18th century and 1:15 or 1:16 in the early 19th --- as the world got smaller the guesses got bigger and wider. Reality was that no one had any idea of the resources available and just looked at what was dug out of the ground in convenient spots.

[Mr. Smith Guesser]

Challenge accepted. Two J's huh? I'll have to play around with that for a while.

[BillJones]

BTW there was no way the bi-metallic system could have ever worked. There is no magic ratio between the prices for gold and silver that would ever be a constant.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that the gold:silver price ratio was originally based on estimates of the Earth's resources.

 

But, of course, a pure estimate of Earthly resources doesn't factor in the economic feasibility of actually mining and processing the metals. NOAA says that there is about 13 billionths of a gram of gold in each liter of seawater. But it would currently cost more to produce than the product would be worth.

 

The original ratio of 15 to 1, which was part of the Coinage Act 1792, was based on a survey by Alexander Hamilton of the gold and silver coins that in circulation at the time. I have a theory that Hamilton had too many heavily circulated silver coins in his survey and that the gold coins were generally in the higher grades and therefore on the heavy side. Therefore his 15 to 1 ratio was off from the start, and the situation got worse over the next two to three decades.

 

As for estimates of the resources available, that only accounts for the supply side of the supply - demand function. The demand or use for a given commodity is often more important that the supply in determining prices.

 

Prime examples are collector coins, tokens and medals. I have some small silver tokens that a fellow named Harold Flarty (He wrote numismatic articles for local, New Jersey, newspapers.) had made in the 1970s with a mintage of 10. They are worth the melt value or a little less because no one really cares about them.

[DaveG]

Bill,

 

One factor that threw Hamilton's ratio off was the economic disruptions caused by the Napoleonic Wars, which got going just after he set the ratio.

 

Also, if you're ever interested in selling some of Harold Flartey's tokens, we at the New Jersey Numismatic Society (of which he was President in 1985 and Secretary for several years thereafter) would probably be interested in buying them.

[RWB]

Did his brother Blarty ever make tokens? I know that his cousin, Slartibartfast, was quite famous for fjords and other fiddly bits. Did Harold Flarty have a hand in the New Jersery shore?

[DaveG]

Oy - Hitchhiker's Guide jokes.

[RWB]

Well - just thinking that if all three had tokens made it could make an interesting collection of Blarty, Flarty and Slarti....

 

Actually, I'm sure he was a nice person and took a lot of good-natured ribbing....