COINAGE Engl., OF. coin, wedge, piece of money, from Lat. Clthells, wedge; con nected with Gk. KCVOS, kenos, cone, Skt. Ana, whetstone, from A, to sharpen). Coins are pieces of metal designed to circulate as money, whose weight and fineness are certified by the im pressions they bear. These impressions are the symbols of the authority by whose orders the coins are issued, but they also bear an important function in maintaining the integrity of the coin. To insure constancy in the weight of the coin it is necessary to protect it against clipping and against unnecessary wear and tear, or abrasion. The form of the coin is, in itself, a guaranty. Convenience of carriage, as well as greater durability, has given the preference to a rounded, generally a circular coin, over other shapes. Where, as in Japan, we find oblong coins, the corners are generally rounded off. The symmetry of outline guarantees the coin. This is heightened by milling the edges. Raised in scriptions serve the same purpose and do so better than incised letters, which are also used. The design npon the face of the coin is usually protected by raised edges, which project as lunch as the highest part of the design.
The importance of these features of modern coins in maintaining intact the weight of the coin by showing at once any attempted clipping, and by preventing the wearing off of surfaces by use, can best be appreciated by comparing them with the crude. irregular disks from which early coins were made, and the high relief of many of the designs upon them.
Gold and silver were used in settling ac counts before coins were invented, but scales were a necessary adjunct of such transactions. Just as gold dust is weighed in the mining regions, so all exchanges effected by the metals before the introduction of coinage involved weighing the metal used. The prevalence of ex change by weight is reflected in the correspond ence, at least in their origin, between coins and measures of weight. To go back no further than the origin of English money, it is sufficient to recall that the monetary pound was once a pound u eight of silver. This system was derived from the money of Charles the Great, and while in the subsequent development they departed widely from the original source, the monetary systems of modern Europe all trace back to the pound of silver.
The invention of coins, which, in classical an tiquity, seem to have been first used in Lydia, did away in a measure with the necessity of weigh ing. In the multiplicity of Grecian States, coins
were numerous, and while this was removed by the Roman Empire, it reappeared with the break up of the Empire of Charles the Great. Not only did each nation make its own coins, but with the disintegration of central authority, nobles and cities usurped this right or had it con ferred upon them by feeble monarchs. The mul tiplicity of coins restricted the area within which they were current. Outside of such areas they had no legal validity; they did not pass by count, but, if at all, only by weight. Certain coins, however, bore such an excellent reputa tion for uniformity and excellence of workman ship that they acquired an international circula tion and passed generally by count or tale. As modern centralized States became strongly rooted, a unification of the coinage took place, and the numerous units disappeared. Improve ments in the processes of coinage have made effective the certification of weight and fineness which coinage implies.
The right to coin money is a prerogative of the State and one of the foremost marks of sovereignty. The circulation of coins rests, in the first instance, upon the authority of the State; but that authority must be exercised in good faith, Coinage issued by individuals would lack authority and lack also the guaranty of good faith. There have been occasions of great dearth of money where private persons have is sued coins. Such issues are known as tokens, and gain circulation either from their similarity to legal coins or from the promise of redeeming them. Their total lack of uniformity gives a picture of what might be expected were the issue of coins left wholly to private initiative. Almost equally obvious is the necessity for the manu facture by the State of the coins which it issues. To delegate the manufacture of its coins to a private establishment, as was done in France before 1879, requires such a minute control of all its operations by State officials that the plan has generally been abandoned. The greater in tegrity of a national mint over a private enter prise is further illustrated by the fact that the mints of the leading nations are frequently called upon to execute the coinage for smaller States which have no mints of their own. Thus, in 1901, the United States Mint executed a gold coinage for Costa Rica.