ABSTRACT
With regard to the metallic part of the currency of modern commercial countries, the supply is effected through the agency of a Government department or undertaking. Such metallic money consists in part of full-valued coins, in part of other coins which, for monetary purposes, represent values greater than those of the metal of which they are made. Thus the English coinage system consists of bronze coins for small payments, an avoirdupois pound of which represents four shillings at the face value of the coins; silver coins for purposes of payments where the bronze coinage would be inconvenient by its weight; and gold coins, the half-sovereign and the sovereign. The silver coins were, prior to 1921, made of an alloy of silver thirty-seven-fortieths fine, and an ounce Troy of such coin had a face value of 5s. 6d. In 1921 an alloy of inferior value was used containing 40 per cent. of alloy, principally nickel, the weight and size of the coins, as well as their denomination, being preserved. The gold coin, the theoretic though not the practical basis of our values, is made of a gold alloy eleven-twelfths fine, this degree of purity being rarely found in other countries where the nine-tenths proportion generally prevails both for gold and for silver coins.
