2. The precious metals, gold and silver, are the standard, or primary, moneys in the world to-day. Primary, typical, standard money is the unit in which the value of the money of a country is expressed, no matter what its form is; the standard is a certain weight and fineness of a particular metal. Coins of this standard are called full, or real, money by some writers who deny the title of money to everything else. It has been shown before that there has been an evolution in the use of money. The more efficient forms, gold and silver, have competed with copper, iron, tin, cattle, salt, tobacco. In this contest silver had proved itself a few centuries ago to be the fittest medium of exchange, but in the last century gold has, among the leading nations, been displacing silver rapidly. In a higher degree than any other material, gold has the qualities of a good standard money in rich and industrially developed communities. The gold-using countries to-day are those of the western world. England for perhaps two centuries practically has had gold as its standard money; the United States since 1834 (except for the period of paper money from 1862 to 1879); France since about the year 1855, at which time she shifted from silver under the working of the bimetallic law; and Germany, then more backward industrially, since 1873. Australia and Japan have reached that result only within the last few years, and Italy, Russia, India, Mexico—even China and other Oriental countries—are striving to attain it.
Subordinate kinds of money
In all these countries other kinds of money are used side by side with gold and silver. The actual money consists of a wide and confusing variety: silver, nickel, copper, paper in various forms and issued by various authorities. But among all the kinds, either gold or silver is found standing preëminent and in a peculiar position. The difficulties of the money problem must be attacked at the point of standard money where it is nearest to ordinary value problems and is less complicated than when the various money substitutes are included. Most of the fallacies regarding money have arisen not about standard money, but about paper and light-weight silver.
Coinage defined
3. Coinage is the act of shaping and marking a piece of metal to be used as money so as to indicate its weight and fineness. The precious metals can and do circulate as money without coinage. Any other mark equally plain and equally recognizable serves for many purposes just as well as the government stamp on the standard metal. The use of metals in antiquity was without coinage, by weight and test of fineness. In backward countries to-day most payments are made by weight. International payments are made by means of gold ingots that bear the mark of some well-known banking-house, and for that purpose gold bullion is money without the coiner's stamp. But for most uses government coinage has marked advantages. It is far more convenient for the average citizen to handle coins uniform in size and design than the diverse coins that would be put out by private enterprisers.
Technical features of coinage
An established rate of fineness insuring uniform quality is a great convenience. In the United States all gold and silver coins are nine tenths fine; in Great Britain, eleven twelfths. The established weight of the gold dollar in the United States is twenty-three and twenty-two hundredths grains of fine gold or twenty-five and eight tenths grains of standard 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. The par of exchange between standard coins of different countries is the expression of the ratio of fine gold in them. Thus the par of exchange between the American dollar and the English sovereign (the "pound") is four and eighty-six and two third hundredths, that is, four and eighty-six and two third hundredths dollars contain the same amount of gold as an English gold sovereign. The embossed design, milled or lettered edges, and other similar devices are merely to make the coins easily recognizable and difficult to counterfeit.
Seigniorage defined
4. Seigniorage is the right the ruler or state has to charge for coinage, or it is the charge made for coinage. Coinage as a function of great importance politically as well as economically was early exercised by governments or rulers. The prince, king, or emperor stamped his own device or portrait upon the coin; hence the term seigniorage from seignior (meaning lord or ruler). The right to issue money came to be one of the most essential prerogatives of sovereignty. Coinage is rarely without charge, and often has been a source of revenue to the ruler. In the Middle Ages this right was frequently exercised by princes for their selfish advantage to the injury and unsettling of trade.
Free or gratuitous coinage