July 2008
Next club meeting Monday 7th September 2009.
Meetings are held at the Abbey Baptist Church. Entrance off Abbey Square.
Meeting commences at 7.00pm.
July Meeting.
Twenty-two members attended the July Meeting which consisted of a talk entitled The Evolution of Money, presented by our very own Michael Gouby.
Michael started by taking us back to before 2500BC to see the earliest forms of ‘money’. This term originally applied to any
commodity which could be traded for something that the purchaser wanted, and included the likes of animals, tools or weapons,
salt and grain. By 1400BC in Egypt, gold and silver (either worked or raw) were being traded by weight.
The first real coins were struck in approximately 600BC by the Lydian and Greek peoples. These were struck from a natural alloy of gold and silver called electrum. These ‘Staters’ were stamped on one side only, and weighed just over 10grammes (or 1/3 ounce), with smaller denominations from halves down to tenth Staters, all of exact weight based on the full Stater. This soon spread to other cities and countries, who produced Staters of gold, silver and electrum. The weight of the coin varied from country to country, meaning that the weight determined the value rather the number of coins. Some cities referred to their Stater weight as a Drachm, and had their denominations related to this named e.g. tetradrachm (4 Drachms).
The Greek cities also portrayed their patron god or goddess, though the first actual person to be portrayed was the ruler of Macedonia, Alexander the Great. After his death, many rulers believed that he had become a god due to his success in battle, and honoured him on their coinage.
Next we moved to Roman Italy. In 289BC (prior to actual coinage), irregular bronze lumps called ‘Aes Graves’ were cast
(not struck) and ranged in weight from 8 to over 330grammes (nearly 12 ounces!). However, over the next 78 years, devaluation
meant that 1 As was reduced from 335grammes down to 32grammes. 211BC saw the introduction of the Denarius (10 Asses),
followed in 46BC by the introduction of the gold Aureus (25 Denarius) by Julius Caesar. Constantine the Great made further changes
and along came the gold Solidus in 310AD. These weighed exactly the same as 24 seeds of the Carob tree. These were also known as
Carats, hence 24 Carat gold!
In China, coins were first struck in 221BC in copper or iron. These ‘wen’ were struck with a hole in the middle, and were strung together; 250 Wen to a String, 4 Strings to a Cash Rope of 10 Kuan.
Coinage was first introduced into England by the Gauls from the northern areas of modern France and Holland, in approximately 150BC. This coinage was used up to 43AD when the Romans conquered Southern England, at which point, it was Roman coinage that circulated. This continued until the Roman province of Britannia was abandoned, at which time the English returned to 200 years of bartering.
From 600AD, the Anglo-Saxons slowly started to return to a crude coinage in local areas. The Kingdon of Mercia was
the first area to copy the flat round silver coins of France. Coins were ‘hammered’ meaning that the blank disk was placed
between two dies, and a hammer was used to impart the desired design. These were called pennies and were used right up until
the mid-1660’s. Alfred the Great standardised the weight of a penny at 24 grains of barley (1 pennyweight).
We used L.s.d. up until 1967 when decimalization occurred. The ‘d’ was derived from denarius, ‘s’ from solidus (12 denarii, giving 12 pennies to a shilling) and ‘L’ from Librae or one pound in weight. One pound equaled 240 pennyweights, giving 240 pennies in one £.
The first gold coinage was struck under Edward III and was called a Noble valued at 6s8d (80 pennies or 1/3 of a pound). The heaviest coin produced was the Oxford Pound in 1642 and was one pound of silver!
Milled (or machine-made) coins were first trialed in 1561 when Eloye Mestrelle (a Frenchman) brought the screw-press to England, but this was dismissed as too slow. Nicholas Briot (also French) was the next to trial screw-presses in 1631, however he fled back to France when the Civil War broke out. Full production of machine-made coins did not occur until 1662.
In 1717, Britain became the first country to introduce a Gold Standard, fixing the price of gold at 7.32grammes per £1. This derived from the 21s gold Guinea being struck in 22carat gold weighing 8.4grammes. The Sovereign was introduced in 1816 at a weight of 7.32grammes and valued at 20s.
The USA also joined the Gold Standard in 1834 fixing gold at $20.67 per ounce, giving an exchange rate of £1 to $4.86. Other countries joined in the 1860 and ‘70s. 1865 saw the creation of the Latin Monetary Union (LMU), a French initiative, including France, Belgium, Switzerland and Italy. This meant that 1 Franc of France was of equal value to those of Belgium and Switzerland as well as the Italian Lira. The LMU set 1gramme of gold to15.5grammes of silver. In 1868, Spain and Greece joined, and by 1889 the LMU also included Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, Montenegro, the Papal States, Romania, San Marino and Serbia. This union was disbanded in the early 1920s due to WW1 and a widening gap between the values of gold and silver.
Denmark, Sweden and Norway set up a similar currency parity called the Scandinavian Monetary Union in 1873, setting 1gramme of gold to 14.88grammes of silver or 2.48 Kroner. This Union lasted until 1914 and the outbreak of WW1.
The German Empire also set up its own Union in 1818, and by 1871 full unification of the 4 Kingdoms, 6 Grand Duchies, 12 Duchies and principalities and 3 Free cities had been achieved. This Union set the price of gold at 1gramme to 2.79 Marks. Again, WW1 saw this Gold Standard being abandoned.
Britain finally abandoned the Gold Standard on 21st September 1931, swiftly followed by Sweden and other European nations. In July 1944, the International Monetary Fund was established and the US Dollar was fixed at $35 per ounce, however this fixing was abandoned in 1971 due to the high cost of the Vietnam War.
The talk was concluded with speculation as to the future of the (relatively) newly established Euro, as well as general talk about the 2008 error 20p with no date. At the time of the talk, these coins had been selling for as much £7,100 on eBay, however since the talk, listings have finished in excess of £500,000! Yes, 5 zeros!
As usual, we would like to thank Michael for a very enlightening talk.
Club Subscriptions.
Will members yet to renew their subscription please see Peter at the next meeting or send same to the club secretary. Membership cards will be sent shortly to paid-up members.
Future Events.
London Coins Bracknell – 5th & 6th September
Croydon Coin Auction, United Reformed Church Hall – 8th September
Midland Coin Fair, National Motorcycle Museum – 13th September
Past Events