Gold and silver coin

“ The cheaper money will always be the money in circulation. Wherever free coinage now exists silver is the only money, while where gold is the standard, silver is employed as a subsidiary coin, maintained at par in gold by the mandate of the government and its receipt for or redemption in gold. ”

“ When silver was the unit of value, gold enjoyed free coinage, and was legal tender in the payment of all debts. Now things have changed. Gold is the unit and silver does not enjoy free coinage.
THE PEN MORE POWERFUL THAN THE SWORD.
THE PEN MORE POWERFUL THAN THE SWORD.
It is refused at the mints. We might get along with gold as the unit, if silver enjoyed the same right gold did prior to 1873. But that right is now denied to silver. When silver was the unit, the unlimited demand for gold to coin into money, made the demand as great as the supply, and this held up the value of gold bullion. ”

“ The weakness of the silver advocates was that they were not content with the coinage of more silver coin than ever before, but were determined that the holder of silver in any form might deposit it in the mint and have it coined into dollars for his benefit at the ratio of sixteen to one, when its market value had then fallen so that twenty ounces of silver were worth but one ounce in gold, and since has fallen in value so that thirty ounces of silver are worth but one ounce in gold. ”

“ One million dollars in ten dollar gold pieces requires only one hundred thousand pieces to be struck, and in twenties, 50,000. It would be much more expensive to recoin the silver than the gold. It would also be of great inconvenience to the government and the people to gather in all the silver coins, while it is of small inconvenience comparatively to collect in and recoin the gold.
"To re-coin the silver money is more expensive, and would take a much longer time than to re-coin the gold. ”

“ An increase of fully twenty-five per cent in the country’s supply of gold, the silver advocates argued, should be followed by a proportionate addition to the monetary use of the despised white metal. The mints were working at fullest capacity turning gold into coin under the Free Coinage of Gold Act. Surely a country with such a plethora of gold, in spite of the croakings of the monometallists less than a year ago, could afford to admit some silver to the mints to take its chance with the more valuable metal. ”

“ If the coin were made much below its intrinsic value in pure silver, it would not pass on the continent; if above, it would be melted down as bullion; and thus the Mint or the state has many points to consider in the matter. A bronze penny pays its full expense of manufacture; a gold sovereign and a silver shilling do not. ”

“ For each kind of metal money there is an established ratio of fineness for the more precious material, which is mixed with baser metals used as alloys. In the United States all gold and silver coins are made nine-tenths fine; in Great Britain, eleven-twelfths. The established weight of the gold dollar in the United States is 25.8 grains of standard gold which contain 23.22 grains of fine gold. The limit of tolerance is the variation either above or below the standard weight or fineness that a coin is allowed to have when it leaves the mint. ”

“ Otherwise you cannot have a stable money.
"Free coinage at a fixed quantity to constitute a dollar does take it off the market, and that is what is necessary in the treatment of a money metal. That is the way gold is now treated, and silver should be so treated.
"But your statement is not true. Silver men are not benefited by remonetization except in common with others. Silver is now worth about 60 cents an ounce as measured in the new standard—gold. It was worth $1.29 per ounce under free coinage. The owner of silver bullion can now buy as much with an ounce of silver as he ever could. ”

“ Had gold been destroyed as primary money by the same nations, and silver made the standard, we could have had gold in the form of token money to-day, worth, say, fifty cents on the dollar as measured in silver. ”

“ Though the silver in this coin was then worth in the market 3.13 cents on the dollar less than gold coin, yet its convenience for use in change, its issue by the government only in exchange for, and its practical convertibility into, gold coin, maintained it in circulation at par with gold coin. If the slight error in the ratio of 1792 prevented gold from entering into circulation for forty-five years, and the slight error in 1837 brought gold into circulation and banished silver until 1853, how much more certainly would an error then of nine per cent. ”

“ Gold has indeed remained with us in considerable amount during the circulation of the inferior currency of the legal tender; but that was because there were two great uses reserved by law for gold: the collection of customs and the payment of interest on the public debt. But if the inferior silver coin is also to be used for these two reserved purposes, then gold has no tie to bind it to us. What gain, therefore, would we make for the circulating medium, if on opening the gate for silver to flow in, we open a still wider gate for gold to flow out? ”

“ In gold standard countries the coinage of gold is unlimited, and—not to speak of the small mint charges—generally free. Under these conditions the value of gold coin and gold bullion are the same, weight for weight.57 The silver coin, which is used to some extent in gold standard countries, does not have either free or unlimited coinage at present. ”

“ So you can see that if it was pure solid cast gold the cubic foot would contain the $398,098+.
"All the gold in the world cast into solid blocks may be stacked behind the counter of the Metropolitan National Bank."
Coin then turned to the teller and invited him to a seat on the platform until he reached the silver illustration.
"Most of your offices would hold it all," Coin began again.
"It is in this quantity of gold that it is proposed to measure the value of all the other property of the world. Its significance is written in our present low prices and depression in business. ”

“ Real money, then, is metallic coin, authenticated by the stamp of a mint as to quantity and fineness. For generations down to 1873, both gold and silver circulated together in civilized countries at a ratio of about one to fifteen, the fluctuations from that ratio being too inconsiderable to cause serious difficulty. With the discovery in 1873, and since, of new and rich deposits of silver, with constant improvement in processes for separating, the metal from its ores, silver in twenty years fell one half in value as compared with gold. ”

“ No one in England would part with his silver for less than an equal value in gold, when he could cross the channel into France and get an even exchange—so the price of silver as measured in gold was during all the years prior to 1873 substantially at par in England and the world over. ”

“ A REAL ESTATE MAN ASKS A QUESTION.
"I want to know," said Mr. George H. Rozet, a real estate dealer, here interrupting Coin, "why you say silver is demonetized, when it is in circulation every day and handled by us as money?"
"We have seen," replied Coin, "how the commercial value of the two metals were parted. By the same laws that produced this result, silver was made redeemable in gold, and ceased to be redemption money. Silver now circulates like paper money, both redeemable in gold. It is now subsidary coin or token money. ”

“ On the other hand, since the discovery of America, gold, as compared with commodities, has declined much less than silver. Compare Hermann, Ueber den gegenwärtigen Zustand des Münzwesens, in Rau's Archiv., I, 151 ff. According to Lord Liverpool, Treatise on the Coins of the Realm, the value of gold coin in the London market, as compared with bank notes, varied in 40 years, almost 51⁄2 per cent.895.In recent times, it has become possible to extract from ancient silver coins a small quantity of gold, and with some advantage. ”

“ It seems nearly similar to those in his "History of Cornwall," pl. xix. (pl. xxiii., 2nd edit.) figs. 9, 10, and 11; but it is exactly the same as the coin engraved Ruding, pl. i., fig. 9. All these examples were of gold, but that represented in the Numismatic Chronicle, (vol. i. p. 209, pl. i. of British coins, fig. 9,) is of silver. The coins of this class are usually found in the southern parts of the kingdom, and it would appear that these types were struck in gold, silver and bronze; those in the two last metals seem the rarest. ”

“ Possibly the existing stocks of gold in Europe and America might be sufficient to serve the purposes of banking reserves and for transmission in the international exchanges; but it is impracticable to use such a valuable metal to the extent required for the purposes of active circulation, and this creates a necessity for a silver legal tender coin for the retail transactions of business. For this reason I regard the use of silver, co-ordinately with gold, as an indispensable element in the world’s currency. ”

“ About one-third of it is gold, one-third silver and one third paper. One-third of our money is redemption money, and two-thirds is credit money.
"The blunder was made when silver was demonetized. The remedy is to remonetize it, and thereby restore its commercial value. Purchase acts, or any treatment of silver short of free coinage will have no beneficial effect." ”

“ Occasionally one of the gold pieces can be purchased, but they are rare and bring large prices by coin collectors, being regarded as curiosities. There are a large number of counterfeits in circulation among the bullet-shaped coin, owing to the fact that a number of years ago the master of the mint, unknown to the King, manufactured an immense number of copper ticals, and being an adept in metallurgy plated them with silver, and put them in circulation. ”

“ The silver coin is open to the same objection as the gold coin as a circulating medium, and the silver certificates to the same objection as the gold certificates, and to the further objection that the silver deposited to secure them is of no use whatever, even as a reserve, for no one would demand silver bullion of the government in exchange for paper money at129 the present coinage value, when they could purchase nearly twice as much in the open market for the same money. ”

“ These coins are now exchangeable only at a considerable loss, and this exchange is a profit only to brokers and bankers. Surely each commercial nation should be willing to yield a little to secure a gold coin of equal value, weight, and diameter, from whatever mint it may have been issued.
"As the gold five-franc piece is now in use by over 60,000,000 of people of several different nationalities, and is of convenient form and size, it may well be adopted by other nations as the common standard of value, leaving to each nation to regulate the divisions of this unit in silver coin or tokens. ”

“ It was perfectly understood that, while silver was the chief coin in domestic exchanges in every country, it was not convenient for foreign commerce, owing to its bulk. The ratio between gold and silver was purely a domestic matter, to be determined by each country for itself. ”

“ It is observable that a gold coin, sometimes called a mancus, in other cases known by other names, circulated during the middle ages in many countries both of Europe and the East, the weight of which was 56 grains troy, which would be just about the weight of gold equivalent to thirty Saxon pennies, on the supposition, which other considerations render probable, that the relative value of gold and silver was then as twelve to one. ”

“ Larger gold coins (solidi) are very rare. In the early laws the money actually in use appears to have been entirely silver. In Offa’s time a new gold coin, the mancus, resembling in standard the Roman solidus (about 70 grains) , was introduced from Mahommedan countries. The oldest extant specimen bears a faithfully copied Arabic inscription. In the same reign the silver coins underwent a considerable change in type, being made larger and thinner, while from this time onwards they always bore the name of the king (or queen or archbishop) for whom they were issued. ”

“ It proves in the most conclusive way, the injury which will surely come when by present acts of coinage and of legal tender, our gold coin has been driven from the country, and our standard of value becomes a silver dollar of light weight and of uncertain value. ”

“ Will the people of this country, the financiers of this country, the banks, the moneyed men holding $500,000,000 of gold, with a certainty of the free coinage of silver and going to a silver basis, for that is what it means, put their gold in circulation, or will they hoard it? ”

“ I am, at all times and in all places, a firm and unwavering advocate of the free and unlimited coinage of silver, not merely for the reason that silver is as ancient and honorable a money metal as gold, and equally well adapted for the money use, but for the further reason that, looking at the annual yield from the mines, the entire supply that can come to the mints will at no time be more than is needed to maintain at a steady level the prices of commodities among a constantly increasing population. ”

“ The gold coinage of the United States mint, since 1849, has amounted to $1,281,420,038. In proportion as the wealth of a country increases it requires a currency of higher value. Gold, owing to its greater supply, and more convenient portability, is steadily gaining in the channels of commercial exchange upon silver. ”

“ In his life-time the mints of France and of the Continent were open for the coinage of silver equally with gold, and the money supply of the world was not constantly narrowing by being limited to the yield of a single metal whose annual output would hardly more than meet the demand for the arts. ”