Talk:Coin

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I think it would be better in the first sentence to say that coins are issued by "an authority" rather than "a government," as many private (non-government) mints have existed. I'd appreciate hearing at least one confirmation of this view. --SMetsker

While it's true that private mints have issued coin-like pieces of metal, no private mint issue (AFAIK) has ever gained legal tender status, which is a key part of the definition of a "coin". Without a status as money, it's just another piece of metal.--chris.lawson 16:56, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
Can you substantiate the claim that part of the definition of "coin" is that the object has legal tender status? Actually, I think that's a mistake; Look at any modern coin magazine, and you'll see ads for items called "coins" that are not (and never were) legal tender. --SMetsker 13 August 2006
The article itself defines a coin as something to be used as money, a fact with which the dictionary agrees[1]. "Money" implies legal tender status by any reasonable definition[2]. Private-issue tokens do not meet this standard, and therefore are not coins. Furthermore, just because an advertisement claims an object to be a coin does not make it so; most of these advertisements also propose that the item advertised has some great collector value, which is almost universally untrue.--chris.lawson 22:57, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Is it true that coins are generally back by a country's reserves? That is are most countries still on a gold or silver standard? --rmhermen

I removed:

Usually, the value of such coins is guaranteed by being backed by that government's reserves.

I would be very surprized if this were true. As far as I know, nearly all coins in the world today are unbacked (or minimally-backed) fiat currencies like the US dollar. --LDC

The US dollar isn't really "unbacked", but what is is backed by is left as an exercise for the reader. The US government neither backs nor creates the US dollar. Who does? -º¡º

What is being measured by the graph in this article? Could the person who added it provide a title or explanation? -- llywrch 02:05 Apr 20, 2003 (UTC)

cumulative inflation, I believe.
price levels (same thing as cumulative inflation more or less) - the graph now has an caption. -º¡º

Not to be nationalistic or xenophobic or bigoted or anything like that, but as this is the English-speaking Wikipedia, perhaps we can get an image of an English-speaking country's coin, such as a US cent or a GB penny, or even an AU dollar? I don't know any countries which use the Euro and speak English, apart from Ireland; but that's Ireland. --195.92.67.78 22:31, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

Done: Changed it to a Canadian quarter. --thirty-seven 06:54, 13 November 2005 (UTC)


Contents

[edit] Not revaluing currency is not unique to U.S.

From the article: What is unique to the United States, among the developed countries, is that the U.S. has never revised its coinage system to accommodate this inflation, and as a result, coins in America today are scarcely regarded as "money" in any practical sense.

To the best of my knowledge, Canadian, Australian, New Zealand, and British coinage systems have never been revised to accomodate inflation. Britain decimalized its currency, but this had nothing to do with inflation and did nothing to change to value of its currency's base unit (pound). When Australia and New Zealand decimalized, they actually devalued their base unit by 50%. I suppose you could consider Australia and New Zealand removing pennies from circulation as revising their coinage systems to accomodate inflation. However, I assumed you were talking about bigger changes, like France decreeing that 100 old Francs == 1 New Franc. In any case, the UK and Canada still have pennies in circulation. The article needs to be rephrased to reflect this, to be accurate and less Amero-centric. --thirty-seven 06:42, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Changes made --PatClay 21:15, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Silver coinage != Fiat money

I have removed this passage: It should be remembered, however, that for most of the era of U.S. silver coinage, such coins were actually fiat money, because the value of silver was relatively low. For example, in 1960, the silver in a dime was worth less than four cents.

I think this is an oversimplification that goes as far as to mislead the reader. From 1792 to 1873 (remember the crime of 1873) there was free coinage of silver that kept the USD and Silver tightly linked. From 1873 to 1893 (and the panic of 1893) silver was freely coinable within certain constraints. In 1893 Silver lost coinability. Now, does this mean that US silver coinage from this point forward was not fiat money? Maybe, maybe not. It depends on if you are using the "completely unbacked" definition of "fiat" or not. Either way, a dime was still 2.5 grams of 90% silver. Finally, the average price of Silver in 1960 was $0.92/oz, which I believe means there was still 7.4 cents of silver in a dime (not less than four cents as the passage suggested). - O^O

[edit] Hey

I just wanted to ask if damaging coins is illegal. Otherone of Sion 08:51, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Nevermind. [3] Otherone of Sion 08:51, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Which way does the Monarch face?

I once saw on a TV show that it's traditional for each successive monarch to face the opposite direction from the previous on their portrait on coins. Well for British coins anyway. For example Queen Elizabeth faces to the right on all British coins, and when(if?) Charles gets to be king, he will face to the left. I don't know if its true... But if it is, it'd be nice to have something mentioned about it here. This TV show also claimed that one particular king (forget which) didn't like that particular side of his face so swapped over (thus creating a rare form of coin worth a lot to collectors) -- Mick (collector of worthless trivia (not coins))

That fact (successive monarchs facing different directions) is already mentioned in the British coinage article. --thirty-seven 09:16, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
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