EXCHANGE. In Commercial Law. A negotiation by which one person transfers to another funds which he has in a certain place, either at a price agreed upon or which is fixed by commercial usage.
This transfer is made by means of an instru ment which represents such funds and is well known by the name of a bill of exchange. The price above the par value of the funds so trans ferred is called the premium of exchange, and if under that value the difference is called the die being called the rate of exchange.
The transfer of goods and chattels for other goods and chattels of equal value. This is more commonly called barter.
The profit which arises from a maritime loan, when such profit is a percentage on the money lent, considering it in the light of money lent in one place to be returned in another, with a difference in amount in the sum borrowed and that paid, arising from the difference of time and place. The term is commonly used in this sense by French writers. Hall, Mar. Loans, 56, n.
The place where merchants, captains of ves sels, exchange-agents, and brokers assemble to transact their business. Code de Comm. art. 71.
The par of exchange is the value of the money of one country in that of another, and is either real or nominal. The nominal pax is that which has been fixed by law or usage, and, for the sake of uniformity, is not altered, the rate of exchange alone fluctuating. The real par is that based on the weight and fine ness of the coins of the two countries, and fluctuates with changes in the coinage. The nominal par of exchange in this country on England, settled in 1799 by act of congress, is four dollars and forty-four cents for the pound sterling ; but by successive changes in the coinage this value has been increased, the real mint par at present being a little over four dollars and eighty-seven cents. The
course of exchange means the quotations for any given time: as, the course of exchange at New York on London was at 108 to 109 during the month.
In Conveyancing. A mutual grant of equal interests inland, the one in considera tion of the other. 2 Blackstone, Comm, 323; Littleton, 62; Sheppard, Touchst. 289; Wat kins, Cony. It is said that exchange in the United States does not differ from bargain and sale. 2 Bouvier, Inst. n. 2055.
There are five circumstances necessary to an exchange. That the estates given be equal. That the word excambium, or exchange, be used,—which cannot be supplied by anyother word, or described by circumlocution. That there be an execution by entry or claim in the life of the parties. That if it be of things which lie in grant, it be by deed. That if the lands lie in several counties, or if the thing lie in grant, though they be in one county, it be by deed indented. In practice this mode of conveyancing is nearly obsolete.
See Cruise, Dig. tit. 32; Comyns, Dig.; Coke, Litt. 51; 1 Washburn, Real Prop. 159; Hard. Ky. 593 ; 1 N. H. 65 ; 3 Harr. & J. Md. 361 ; 3 Wils. 489 ; Watkins, Cony. b. 2, c. 5 ; 3 Wood, Cony. 243.