Silver coin

“ Still another vague impression has been produced upon the popular mind, that the old silver dollar of the fathers is a sure medicine for all economic ailments, and our Democratic friends are loudly demanding “the removal of all restrictions to the coinage of silver and the reëstablishment of silver as a money metal—the same as gold, the same as it was before its demonetization.” Upon this point I shall permit myself only a very few remarks. Every sensible man will be in favor of silver coin as a part of our monetary system. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Experience shows that silver coin will not circulate to any considerable amount. Only about one silver dollar to each inhabitant is maintained in circulation with all the efforts made by the Treasury Department, but silver certificates, the representatives of this coin, pass current without question, and are maintained at par in gold by being received by the Government for all purposes and redeemed if called for. ”

“ 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. ”

“ To make our silver coin even three per cent. less valuable than gold, inflicts at once a loss of [325] more than twenty millions of dollars on the holders of our paper-money. To make a silver dollar worth but ninety-two cents, precipitates on the same class a loss of well-nigh sixty millions of dollars. For whatever the value of the silver dollar is, the whole paper issue of the country will sink to its standard when its coinage is authorized and its circulation becomes general in the channels of trade. ”

“ Since this old specie carries denominations above its value, when compared with the bagged-bank-silver coin, it serves to buy up this good silver, when it falls into circulation; that is, it serves to buy up, or to exchange, florin pieces, which are, as I have said, 1⁄2 per cent. better than ducats at 5f. 5st. Such good silver pieces are not very common in ordinary circulation; but as it frequently happens that people receive silver in sacs, for their daily expence, who do not mind the difference of 1⁄2 per cent. ”

“ We all know that it is more convenient to make our payments, so far as possible, in one coin than in two or more, let it be of gold, silver, or copper. Now, as a matter of ascertained fact, the Mint produces a larger number of shillings than of any other denomination of silver coin. ”

“ So little is this metal in circulation that I do not deem it any exaggeration to say that there are millions of people in the United States, "native here, and to the manner born," who have never in all their lives seen a gold coin. ”

“ The pound of fine silver is struck into 100 marks, 9⁄10 fine. The total amount of silver coin not to exceed 10 marks per head of population. No individual need accept more than 20 marks of imperial silver coin in payments. They are accepted in any amount by the Empire and by the Federal States.
All other German coins are no longer legal tender, and have been withdrawn, with the single exception of the thaler pieces. Whatever pieces of this kind still exist are legal tender to any amount, like the imperial gold coins, each being equal to 3 marks. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And when so mixed is called standard silver or standard gold. Before it is mixed with the alloy it is called pure silver or pure gold. The standard of both gold and silver is such that by 1,000 parts by weight, 900 shall be of pure metal, and 100 of alloy. The alloy of silver coins is copper. In gold coins it is copper and silver, but the silver shall in no case exceed one-tenth of the whole alloy. Standard silver and standard gold is the metal when mixed with its alloy.
"I now think we understand," said Coin, "what the unit of value was prior to 1873. We had the silver dollar as the unit. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But suppose there were not one single halfpenny of copper coin in this whole kingdom, (which Mr. Wood seems to intend, unless we will come to his terms, as appears by employing his emissaries to buy up our old ones at a penny in the shilling more than they pass for) it could not be any real evil to us, although it might be some inconvenience. We have many sorts of small silver coins, to which they are strangers in England ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 is common now to hear the expression that the silver in a silver dollar is only worth sixty cents, or fifty cents, or forty-eight cents, as the case may be at the time. People do not stop to think what measure that value is being taken in. When we had a double standard, and silver was the unit, such a thing as its being worth less than a dollar was as impossible as it would be now for the gold in a gold dollar to be worth less than a dollar. ”

“ 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. ”

“ France and the Latin Union, with less population and wealth than we have, maintained a premium on silver for forty years by opening their mints to its free coinage, and at a ratio of 151⁄2 to 1, while ours was 16 to 1. ”

“ 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. ”

“ To accomplish this it is indispensable either that the silver coin be limited in amount, or that its bullion value be equal to that of the gold dollar. If not, it use will be limited to domestic purposes. It cannot be exported except at its commercial value as bullion. If issued in excess of demands for domestic purposes, it will necessarily fall in market value, and, by a well-known principle of finance, will become the sole coin standard of value. Gold will be either hoarded or exported. When two currencies, both legal, are authorized without limit, the cheaper alone will circulate. ”

“ In this system the United States standard of -j 9 ^ would be expressed 21 carats. The fineness of silver is estimated by stating the number of ounces of fine silver in a pound troy of the metal. Thus pure silver is 12 fine; and English silver coins, are 11 T V fine, because in a pound troy of standard silver the law requires 11 T V oz. pure silver and T 9 T of an oz. alloy. Thus it will be seen that while the British standard for gold coins is 91 6f thousandths, that of silver coin is 925 thousandths. Coins are generally made flat, circular, and thin. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The Mint has been pitted against the smelting-pot, and the coin produced by so much patience and skill by the one has been rapidly reduced into bangles by the other.”67
Now it will be seen from the figures given that all the import of silver was coined and used up for currency purposes. Very little or nothing was left over for the industrial and social consumption of the people. That being the case, it is obvious that a large part of the coined silver must have been abstracted from monetary to non-monetary purposes. The hidden source of this monetary stringency thus becomes evident. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Free coinage means that we shall purchase not merely four and a half million ounces a month, but all the silver that is offered, come from where it may, if presented in quantities of one hundred ounces at a time. We are to give the holder either coin or treasury notes, at his option, at the rate of one dollar for every 371 grains, now worth in the market 77 cents. Who can estimate the untold hoards of silver that will come into the treasury if this policy is adopted? ”

“ The gold pressure continued for about five years, when it was relieved by the creation of a Government assay office in New York, and a branch mint at San Francisco. But directly sequent to this came the change of standard in silver coin, causing an immense recoinage in small pieces. Thus our daily assays continued to count by hundreds. This lasted for some years. When it began to slacken off, a law was passed for calling in the large copper coins and issuing in their stead pieces of copper-nickel alloy of much smaller size. ”