Guinea (coin)

“ If the pound weight (troy) of gold be divided into 89 parts, each of them will be equal to half a guinea, so that 12 ounces contain 44 1/2 guineas.—As this favourite coin is gradually disappearing, we think it superfluous to state its accurate proportion of pure gold and alloy:—it has been confidently reported, that English guineas have lately been exchanged on the Continent, and especially in Hamburgh, at from 24 to 25 shillings. ”

“ But after various fluctuations of fortune, when the general peace took place in 1763, he found himself possessed of two thousand guineas prize-money, with the reputation of being one of the best merchant captains in the Port of London.
About that time, a Company there resolved to make an attempt to form a settlement on the west coast of Africa, by founding a harbour and town midway between the Cape de Verd and the river Senegal. In the London and other papers of the day we find many statements urging the advantage of opening up the Guinea-trade ”

“ The same cause has been the occasion of the ill treatment they have sometimes given to innocent strangers, who have attempted to trade with them. As the Europeans have no settlement on this part of Guinea, the trade is carried on by signals from the ships, on the appearance of which the natives usually come on board in their canoes, bringing their gold-dust, ivory, &c. which has given opportunity to some villainous Europeans to carry them off with their effects, or retain them on board till a ransom is paid. ”

“ The mining sector accounted for about 75% of exports in 1999. Long-run improvements in government fiscal arrangements, literacy, and the legal framework are needed if the country is to move out of poverty. Fighting along the Sierra Leonean and Liberian borders, as well as refugee movements, have caused major economic disruptions, including a loss in investor confidence. Foreign mining companies have reduced expatriate staff, while panic buying has created food shortages and inflation in local markets. Guinea is not receiving multilateral aid. ”

“ The premium on Spanish gold was never agreed to by the business people. Having thus arbitrarily put a premium on Spanish gold, the same authorities later put a premium on French gold, and to make the matter more complicated, the United States Government is now requested, by some of the Cuban financiers, to introduce another gold coin, which, practically, will be worth ten per cent. more in Cuba than in the United States; that is, a man owing $1,100 gold in Cuba may pay that debt with $1,000 gold in United States currency. ”

“ And, as paper money probably served the purposes of the island every bit as well as gold, nobody was any the worse. By giving up the needless extravagance of using gold coins as counters, and by taking to paper counters instead, Guernsey really got its Market House without cost. The same resource is open to any community already possessing a gold currency, and becoming civilised and self-restrained and sensible enough to arrange to do without gold counters in its internal trade. But Guernsey could not have gone on equipping itself with endless municipal buildings as out of a bottomless purse. ”

“ If he lands anywhere in Polynesia—Samoa, Tonga, Cook's Islands, or elsewhere—he will have Customs duties to pay, house rent, and a trading licence. And everywhere he will find keen competition and measly profits, unless he lives like a Chinaman on rice and fish.
“In British New Guinea you can dig gold in hand-fuls out of the mangrove swamps” (O ye gods!) ”

“ The Spanish authorities at Madrid, having thus inflated two gold coins six per cent. above their current value and about ten per cent. above their intrinsic value—for the mint value of these two coins at Havana is $4.776 and $3.8208 respectively—the United States authorities at Washington were now called upon to inflate a third gold coin and make the American eagle worth $11 in Cuba and our $5 gold piece current there at $5.50. ”

“ These natives of Guinea are very wary in driving bargains, and will not willingly lose the smallest particle of their gold, using weights and measures for the same with great circumspection. In dealing with them, it is necessary to behave with civility and gentleness, as they will not trade with any who use them ill. ”

“ When it is remembered that the price of provisions at the Yodda Camp is prohibitive, it is not an extravagant assumption to compute that each man must be turning out at least three ounces of gold per week to make it worth his while to remain. There are other workings in the Woodlark Islands, and there are certainly evidences of gold everywhere in the streams of New Guinea. It does not seem likely that the miners are turning their earnings to the best account at the present time. ”

“ Why are louis d’ors worth as much as guineas in many foreign countries? It is evident that they are not intrinsically worth so much by 41⁄2 per cent. but they are virtually so in the eyes of money-jobbers; because, being exported from France while coin is fallen low by a wrong balance of their trade, they still retain an advanced value, for this reason, that when sent back, upon a revolution in trade, they are better than bullion, by all the advanced price of the French coin, at a time when their balance becomes favourable ”

“ XIII.34 The successful operation of the system is not only compatible with, but actually requires, an overvaluation of the metallic content of the silver currency. In fact, in the Philippines it was found necessary to reduce the silver pesos from 374 grains to 247 grains, to prevent their disappearance. Without a margin between the coin-value and the bullion-value of the peso, the power to regulate its circulation would exist only in one direction—contraction; with such a margin, the power exists to expand as well as to contract. ”

“ The currency of Guatemala is silver, with the exception of about $50,000 of Government paper, and, like the silver currency of the United States, is worth only about seventy per cent of its face in gold; but, unlike the Northern Republic, Guatemala has not the power to float her debased coin, and the standard is therefore American gold. To meet its needs the Government sometimes mortgages to money-lenders its revenues in part, or even puts a custom-house in pawn; and cases have occurred where its subsidies have been suspended by arbitrary decree for a year, or even longer. ”

“ Most of these Oceanic peoples had some idea of a currency, except in the savage interior of New Guinea; that is to say, there were objects used in trade which had a more or less fixed value, such as, in some island groups, the red hair-tufts from the necks of fruit bats, parrots' feathers, the feathers of the starling-like Drepanidæ (in Hawaii) , brightly coloured shells—or, in others, pieces of bark cloth, rolls of matting, beautiful seeds, disks, pieces or points of shells strung on fibre (like the wampum of America) , or the teeth of dolphins, whales, dogs, phalangers, and boars ”

“ But as the fabrication of such coin requires a greater degree of skill and ingenuity than generally prevails, and also a greater capital than most coiners are able to command, it is to be hoped it has gone to no great extent; for amidst all the abuses which have prevailed of late years, it is unquestionably true, that the guineas and half-guineas which have been counterfeited in a style to elude detection, have borne no proportion in point of extent to the coinage of base Silver. ”

“ The creditor melts down his new silver again, sells it as bullion for bank notes as before, and returns upon the hank with a new demand.
Reducing guineas to 20 shillings, is the same as making them a commodity. 587It is the same thing as to this last supposition, whether the guineas be left as merchandize to seek their value, or be fixed at 20 shillings; for no man upon earth will give a heavy guinea for 20 shillings present currency; and if debtors were obliged to pay at that rate, the hardship would be exactly the same as in the foregoing supposition ”

“ And only experienced men of sterling physique can stand the awful labour and hardships of gold-mining in the Possession. Deadly malarial fever adds to the diggers' hard lot in New Guinea, and the natives, when not savage and treacherous, are as unreliable and as lazy as a Spanish priest.
In conclusion, I can assure my readers that there is no prospect for any man of limited means to make money in the South Seas as a trader. Any assertions to the contrary have no basis of fact in them. In cotton and coco-nut planting there are good openings for men of the right stamp ”

“ Were the private people who carry their gold and silver to the mint to pay themselves for the coinage, it would add to the value of those metals, in the same manner as the fashion does to that of plate. Coined gold and silver would be more valuable than uncoined. The seignorage, if it was not exorbitant, would add to the bullion the whole value of the duty; because, the government having everywhere the exclusive privilege of coining, no coin can come to market cheaper than they think proper to afford it. ”

“ Cuba has just established its own coinage. Its monetary system is on a gold basis. The unit is the gold peso, worth exactly one dollar, United States money. A silver fractional currency, with subsidiary coins resembling our nickel, two and one cent pieces, is employed, these also being the equivalent in value of American money of the same denomination. ”

“ No foreigner was robbed, and the stock of domestic silver dwindled from year to year, until at the Revolution the golden guinea, which, from its first issue in 1662 down to the accession of William and Mary, had been nominally current for twenty shillings, actually sold in the market for thirty shillings of the money in use. ”

“ While the gold-exchange standard purports to be a system of redemption, or partial redemption in gold of the native coin, yet as a matter of fact, no gold is necessarily required in the country itself where the system is in operation. Thus, the Philippine government does not offer gold for silver pesos, even when gold is wanted for export to New York. ”

“ The money paid for coining, or the coinage of France has, however, this advantage, that the money is a standard, which does not fluctuate with the price of bullion. This [90] coinage is, as has been said, about eight per cent. When bullion is below ninetytwo, it is carried to the mint; when above ninetytwo, to the broker, or the silversmith. The coin still continues fixed, nor will it bear exportation until bullion rises to a hundred, when the French coin would be as liable to exportation as the English. ”

“ To waste or neglect stable and home made manures, or throw away bones or other valuable fertilizers, because we could buy guano, would be as insensible as it would for a man to throw away a handful of bank bills, because he happened to have just then a pocket full of gold and silver coin. ”

“ If there is one incontestable principle it is that all matters relating to the current coin of any country have their source in the supreme prerogative, and that no one has the right to arrogate to himself the power of circulating a private coinage on which he imprints for his own profit an arbitrary value. ”

“ In Manila the Mexican dollar goes in ordinary small exchanges, payment of wages and settlement of bills, for fifty cents; but the banks sell the Mexicans twenty-one of them for ten gold dollars—an American eagle! So far as the native people go, labor and produce are counted in silver, and the purchaser, or employer gets as much for a silver dollar as for a gold dollar. The native will take ten dollars in gold for ten dollars only in all settlements of accounts, and would just as willingly—even more so, accept ten Mexican dollars as ten American dollars in gold coin. ”

“ Nunez, as far as I can make out, does not speak of them as coins, but rather implies that in account so many tangas of silver were reckoned as a pardao. Later in the century, however, we learn from Balbi (1580) , Barrett [22] (1584) , and Linschoten (1583-89) , the principal currency of Goa consisted of a silver coin called xerafin (see XERAFINE) and pardao-xerafin, which was worth 5 tangas, each of 60 reis. ”

“ This trade was carried on at the hazard of losing their ships and cargoes, if they had fallen into the hands of the Portuguese, who claimed an exclusive right of trade, on account of the several settlements they had made there.A In the year 1553, we find captain Thomas Windham trading along the coast with 140 men, in three ships, and sailing as far as Benin, which lies about 3000 miles down the coast, to take in a load of pepper.B Next year John Lock traded along the coast of Guinea, as far as D'Elmina, when he brought away considerable quantities of gold and ivory. ”

“ In the present state of the gold coin, and as long as it continues to be received by weight, they certainly would gain nothing by such a change. But if the custom of weighing the gold coin should ever go into disuse, as it is very likely to do, and if the gold coin should ever fall into the same state of degradation in which it was before the late recoinage, the gain, or more properly the savings, of the bank, in consequence of the imposition of a seignorage, would probably be very considerable. ”

“ A golden guinea was handled by many with that curiosity with which one regards some rare and strange object. Everywhere was the one-pound note, issued for the purposes of restricting cash payments and restoring credit; but so many banks issuing one-pound notes failed to meet their obligations that this medium of exchange was regarded with a very just suspicion, still echoed in the old song that says—
"I'd rather have a guinea than a one-pound note." ”