Gold coin

“ The late reformation of the gold coin, therefore, has raised not only the value of the gold coin, but likewise that of the silver coin in proportion to gold bullion, and probably, too, in proportion to all other commodities; though the price of the greater part of other commodities being influenced by so many other causes, the rise in the value of either gold or silver coin in proportion to them may not be so distinct and sensible. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I thought of the tired man haunting the docks in search of a ship, often aching with hunger and at night sleeping in a shed, and yet all the time with a piece of gold in his pocket which he would not change in order that I might have it.
A coin is an emblem of wealth, but this gold piece is an emblem of a rarer currency, of that wealth which is—in a peculiar sense—"beyond the dream of avarice," a something that no money could buy, for what sum could express the bounty or the sentiment of this generous heart? ”

“ The legislation, therefore, of all countries is the great factor determining coin value, not alone in the country legislating, but also in all other countries using gold and silver as a basis for their system. The factor next in importance is the extent to which credit is used in the place of money. The total production of gold is so small beyond the amount used in the arts and sciences that it would require a great change in its value, and years of time, for any increased production due to higher value to affect materially the quantity of gold coin in use. ”

“ While I do not expect to die, I am always aware that fate may be about to press the cup to my lips. I have good news—wonderful! We now have four and a half million dollars in gold coin. You know where it is hidden. ”

“ Also, when gold coin or bullion came into the United States in the course of trade, and was inconvenient to transport or to use in large payments for cotton or other products, the treasurer of the United States, or his assistants in all parts of the country, issued silver certificates in exchange for gold, that in this way the coin reserve in the treasury was maintained and increased without cost, that during one season $80,000,000 gold was in this way acquired by the treasury. ”

“ The advocates of gold monometallism believed that the issue of these dollars would speedily drive gold from the country. Owing to the limitation of the new coinage no such effect was experienced, and the silver dollars, or the certificates representing them, floated at par with gold, which, indeed, far from leaving the country, was imported in vast amounts nearly every year. After 1880 the money in circulation in the United States was gold coin, silver coin gold certificates, greenbacks or United States notes, and the notes of the national banks. ”

“ Whereas the silver coins of the realm have, by long use and other circumstances, become greatly diminished in number and deteriorated in value, so as not to be sufficient for the payments required in dealings [Pg 243] under the value of the current gold coins, by reason whereof a great quantity of light and counterfeit silver coin and foreign coin has been introduced into circulation within this realm, and the evils resulting therefrom can only be remedied by a new coinage of silver money.... ”

“ This circumstance serves to connect our coinage with the earliest issues made from the temples, under direction of the priests. The reverse of the coin has a small eagle, nearly hidden by the shield upon its breast. Its left talon holds three arrows, and its right an olive-branch. The distinctive mark of this reverse is the arc of diverging rays of the sun above the head of the eagle. This arc is found with peculiar appropriateness upon a gold coin, since it is a symbol of the old sun-worship, or of Apollo, under whose auspices gold coins were originally issued. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Experience has proved that foreign coin, and especially foreign gold coin, will not circulate extensively as a currency among the people. The important measure of extending our specie circulation, both of gold and silver, and of diffusing it among the people can only be effected by converting such foreign coin into American coin. I repeat the recommendation contained in my last annual message for the establishment of a branch of the Mint of the United States at the city of New York. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Gold coin of the United States is 900 fine, that is, 900 parts of every thousand is pure gold; gold coin of Great Britain is 916-2/3 fine. In each case a small amount of silver, or silver and copper, is added to give the coin the requisite hardness. The coining of gold, and also other metals, is a government monopoly in every civilized country.
The fiat value of gold throughout the commercial world is the equivalent of $20.6718 per troy ounce of fine metal; an eagle weighs, therefore, 2580 grains. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In a country like the United States, however, where checks are often drawn for amounts less than a dollar, and where the bulk of the gold, or standard money, is to be found, not in circulation but in reserves, one need not anticipate that the medium of exchange function would give a big agio to gold coin, even if free coinage ceased. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Nobody imagines, I believe, that even the greater part of the annual coinage, amounting, for ten years together, before the late reformation of the gold coin, to upwards of £800,000 a-year in gold, was an annual addition to the money before current in the kingdom. ”

“ 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 pretence set up for this extraordinary degradation of the gold, was, that our coin might peradventure be exported, in order to be de-silvered abroad, a danger which could have been most readily averted, by leaving out as much gold in every sovereign as was equivalent to the silver introduced, and thus preserving its intrinsic value in precious metal. When the film of fine gold which covers each of our present pieces has been rubbed off from the prominent parts, these must appear of a very different and deeper colour than the flat part or ground of the coin. ”

“ Henry VII. gave a small gold coin known as the angel noble. It was of about six shillings and eight pence in value, and was a current coin of the period, and the smallest gold coin issued. On one side of the coin was a figure of the angel Michael overcoming the dragon, and on the other a ship on the waves. During the residence of Charles II. on the continent, those who visited him to [Pg 21] receive the royal rite had to give him gold, but after the Restoration, “touch-pieces” were made expressly for presentation at the healings. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A HALF-DALER PIECE, WHICH MEASURES THREE INCHES SQUARE.
Amongst the most civilised races gold and silver coin, or "bank-notes," secured by deposits of gold and silver or by Government guarantees, are the recognised media of exchange. Modern coinages exhibit many specimens of beautiful and artistic moneys, and the notes—bills, as they are called in America—issued by the Bank of England, the French, United States, and other Governments, are, if not exactly artistic, wonderfully ingenious devices for baffling the skill of the forger. ”

“ "A good man's prayers are golden recompense!" rejoined old Roger Chillingworth, as he took his leave. "Yea, they are the current gold coin of the New Jerusalem, with the King's own mint-mark on them!" ”

“ Even Bonamy Price, who is wedded to the gold standard, in his Principles of Currency, says:
Gold, in the form of money or coin, is not sought for its own sake, as an article of consumption. It must never be regarded as valuable except for the work it performs, so long as it remains in the state of coin. It can be converted at pleasure into an end, into an article of consumption, by being sold ”

“ 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. ”

“ In China, which has at least a fourth, and perhaps a third, of all the population of the globe, gold and silver are not coined at all by the Government. The only coin that is coined by the Government, and that is in circulation as money, is a small coin, of a base metal, worth no more than a fifth, sixth, or seventh of one of our cents. ”

“ 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. ”

“ United States standards.—The system of coinage in the United States since 1873 embraces standard coins of gold, silver, nickel and copper, but gold alone actually furnishes the standards of value, all other coins being at present subsidiary. Gold is coined for individuals free; that is, a certain weight of metal presented at the mint is assayed, to determine the exact weight of pure gold, and an equal weight of pure gold is returned to the owner in coin. ”

“ The fifty-dollar octagon gold piece, issued in 1851, is a very beautiful coin. “Gold slugs” are novelties; are oblong gold pieces, [63] and are valued at sixteen dollars. The Utah coins also attract attention. They are of gold, fine. The device is an “all-seeing eye” and two clasped hands; reverse, “a bee-hive,” with inscription, “Holiness to the Lord.” Some have for legend, “G. S. L. C. P. G.,” which the initiated receive as “Great Salt Lake City, Pure Gold.”
The series of the United States coins is complete, and can be readily examined. The changes have been very gradual. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Free coinage by the United States will at once establish a parity between the two metals. Any nation that is big enough to take all the silver in the world, and give back merchandise and products in payment for it, will at once establish the parity between it and gold. ”

“ The adjustment of the monetary circulation to the needs of trade has given rise to composite money systems, in which, whatever may be the standard, gold, silver, and paper are usually combined. Under a single gold standard paper is generally used for larger payments, while silver is used for the smaller. Both are representative money in such cases. Silver is issued as token coinage. A token coin is one whose bullion value is less than its face value and whose legal power to pay debts is limited. ”