PING: oly
Mr. Jaggers
were both unable to account for the ratio of the Scottish shilling to the
British shilling, which seems to have been in the neighborhood of 24 to 1.
So, can you verify that to have been the exchange rate in the 1600s, and can
you give the reason for it? Much obliged in advance.
James III
oly
Actually, I am not very strong on the subject of Scotish coinage
before the time that James I (James VI of Scotland) came to the
English throne.
Even my own "hands-on" handling of English coins is not much before
The Restoration of Charles II in 1660, 'though I feel stronger on that
whole subject from 1483 or thereabouts.
The extreme difference between the English and the Scotish systems
probably reflects that (1) the political situation in Scotland was
typically less stable than in England (unstable authority tends
towards coin debasement), and (2) that Scotland's economy was
relatively more primitive [more basic] and that coins weren't used
nearly as frequently in the North as in the South. Even as late as
the 1770's, Dr. Sam'l Johnson commented on the strong purchasing power
and scarcity of coins in Scotland.
Can't readily help on why those extreme ratios developed as they did.
A lady from Scotland told me about two weeks ago that today there are
51 million English and 8 million Scots (and FWIW, 3 million in
Northern Ireland). I was not exactly aware of the lopsidedness of
these population figures.
oly
Mr. Jaggers
During that conversation I did speculate on the odd relationships of the
Jersey penny (13 to the shilling) and the Manx penny (14 to the shilling),
mostly in terms of the effort to keep those coppers from making their way to
the homeland. Maybe Tony Clayton could shed some light on all this.
James the Accountant
Peter
Bateson in, "Coinage in Scotland" describes a general debasement of
the Scottish coins beginning around 1357 and follows it to 1526 in
respect to the groat. At that point, the groat has debased by 4:1 wrt
the English groat. I don't see where he carries on into the 1600's
with his narrative. Still, with a united kingdom thereafter, they
should have converged.
oly
There would be no means to "converge" unless the intrinsic values of
the coins of the two countries were exactly the same.
The "token" principle was unacceptable to people and not often tried
by authorities until the mid-nineteenth century.
In a more sane world than today's, a coin was worth no more or no less
than the weight and value of its metal.
oly
Mr. Jaggers
Ah yes, I pine for that saner world of the 1600s that gave us hard currency
and the Thirty Years War.
James the Historian
oly
>
> - Show quoted text -
The greatest currency debasements in history arose from the needs to
finance World War I, World War II and Vietnam.
At least in the Thirty Years War, you got hard currency and you
generally got to face the s-o-b who was trying to kill you. Now
somebody paid with electronic debits and credits, they can simply
press a button from seven thousand miles away and kill you, and
they'll be back home in Virginia or Maryland the same evening.
People think that history is the linear story of "progress" in all
things, that things always get better and better. The history of
money does not bear out that hypothesis.
I think J.M. Galbreath said that first, and better than I just did.
oly
Peter
> There would be no means to "converge" unless the intrinsic values of
> the coins of the two countries were exactly the same.
Well, yes. That was a part of my point. Both countries used the
groat (4 pence). It was the Scots that were using less silver in the
coin. I am guessing that in a united kingdom, there would be pressure
that the same coin should have somewhat similar properties.
Mr. Jaggers
I can't imagine anything more fun that minding your own business in some
little village in post-medieval Hesse, only to look toward the ridge to the
north, where a band of drunken Scandinavians ride down, rape your wife and
nubile daughters, dash your kids' (the few who survived early infancy)
brains out on a nearby stone wall (all while you watch helplessly), then put
the blade to your neck and reduce your squalid dwelling to ashes or rubble.
Them were the good ole daze, yupper.
Now
> somebody paid with electronic debits and credits, they can simply
> press a button from seven thousand miles away and kill you, and
> they'll be back home in Virginia or Maryland the same evening.
Of course, that can be done, but so far it has not been done, at least not
to the scale you have described. And what's the point of sitting around
stewing about it happening? I'm going to enjoy life to the fullest extent
possible as long as possible.
> People think that history is the linear story of "progress" in all
> things, that things always get better and better. The history of
> money does not bear out that hypothesis.
What people are you talking about? Please don't even think of including me
in that collective noun.
And what's wrong with dreaming of progress? Without hope and dreaming,
what's the point of life?
To stay on topic, right now I'm dreaming about someday owning a (1785) bar
copper. If those chuckleheads hold off on pushing that button for a while,
my dream might still come true.
James, in Anticipation of Great Things
mazorj
"oly" <oly...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:c623e4bf-ae4e-42b8...@l37g2000vbd.googlegroups.com...
...
< The greatest currency debasements in history arose from the needs to
finance World War I, World War II and Vietnam.
True, but I wouldn't stop there. At this point, you can't ignore the
cumulative effects of our adventurism in Iraq and Afghanistan on the
soundness of the dollar.
On another level, Soviet expenditures in the Cold War and Afghanistan
probably sapped the ruble more than enough to qualify as a contributing
factor in the fall of the USSR.
The cost of war in blood, treasure, and the pursuit of happiness is orders
of magnitude beyond the ken of most people. Even when we do learn it as a
hard-knocks lesson in hindsight, every nation in the "civilized" world seems
to forget it every generation or two.
To tie this back to coin relevance: Devaluation of any currency makes the
lowest denominations more and more superfluous. The mill is long gone, as
are the half-cent, 2- and 3-cent pieces. These used to have useful places
in monetary transactions. Now, people are asking "Of what use, sir, is the
penny?" Furthermore, the recent slide in demand for new higher-denomination
coinage has forced the Mint to reduce its output of what used to be their
core business in business strikes.
Needless to say, all of this does not bode well for, and is detrimental to
the interests of collectors. IMO we are best served under the conditions of
a sound economy and a stable dollar.
oly
> "oly" <oly2...@aol.com> wrote in message
I tend to agree that it is almost incomprehensible why there has not
been more inflation in the U.S.A. as of early 2010. But perhaps the
vast military spending and financial industry bailouts have been more
than offset by the collapse in house and commercial real estate prices
and the unwillingness of lenders to advance new monies to borrowers at
a sufficient pace to spur prices.
oly
Mr. Jaggers
I seem to remember a discussion of this on a talking heads show. The
consensus was that the inflation of 1979-80 was the delayed result of
accumulated, unbudgeted Vietnam War expenditures. I certainly hope that
your assessment above is accurate.
By the way, I'm not going to try to find it, but you made a prediction early
in 2009 about how many banks would fail by the end of the year. How did
that all shake out, high, low, or fairly accurate?
James the Moneychanger
oly
>
> - Show quoted text -
The inflation that you recall as condensed into the Carter years was
really a steady, mounting phenomena from 1966 to 1984 or so. For
instance, Nixon instituted "price controls" in 1971.
I don't recall and can't find my bank failure prediction easily
either. Actually, there were 140 bank failures in 2009. Asset-wise,
total assets in failed banks in 2009 was totally off-the-charts
because of the failure of giant-sized Washington Mutual.
If anyone can find what I posted, I would be interested.
Professionally, I was told an official prediction of 250 bank failures
in 2010, and I thought that sounded plausible. However, as of
4/19/2010, we are maybe 50 banks or so behind that pace.
There remains a shortage of trained bank examiners and qualified bank
liquidation personnel. The makes it impossible to go as fast as
desirable in evaluating and closing problem shops.
oly
Mr. Jaggers
> The inflation that you recall as condensed into the Carter years was
> really a steady, mounting phenomena from 1966 to 1984 or so. For
> instance, Nixon instituted "price controls" in 1971.
>
> I don't recall and can't find my bank failure prediction easily
> either. Actually, there were 140 bank failures in 2009. Asset-wise,
> total assets in failed banks in 2009 was totally off-the-charts
> because of the failure of giant-sized Washington Mutual.
>
> If anyone can find what I posted, I would be interested.
>
> Professionally, I was told an official prediction of 250 bank failures
> in 2010, and I thought that sounded plausible. However, as of
> 4/19/2010, we are maybe 50 banks or so behind that pace.
>
> There remains a shortage of trained bank examiners and qualified bank
> liquidation personnel. The makes it impossible to go as fast as
> desirable in evaluating and closing problem shops.
Actually, it was on 2/21/09 that Arizona Coin Collector posted the
following:
"I have been tracking the number of U.S. BANKS that have
failed and was taken over by FDIC for 2009. As of
02/20/09, a total of 14 banks have failed this year.
http://www.fdic.gov/news/news/press/2009/index.html
For all of the year 2008, 25-banks failed.
I am guessing a 100 banks fail in 2009 at the current
rate."
A discussion involving me, you, and others then ensued. From my review of
this thread, I didn't find that you had made any predictions.
James the Archivist
Tony Clayton
When James VI of Scotland became King of England also as James I, the two countries
remained separate despite having a single monarch.
It was not until the Act of Union in the reign of Anne that the decision was
made to have a common currency, and the Edinburgh Mint worked hard to produce
UK type coins to replace the old Scottish currency.
--
Tony Clayton tony.cla...@pem.cam.ac.uk
Coins of the UK : http://www.coins-of-the-uk.co.uk
Sent using RISCOS using VirtualAcorn-SA running on a PC
... He's not dead, Jim, he's just metabolically challenged.
mazorj
On Apr 18, 4:32 pm, "mazorj" <maz...@verizon.net> wrote:
...
> To tie this back to coin relevance: Devaluation of any currency makes the
> lowest denominations more and more superfluous. The mill is long gone, as
> are the half-cent, 2- and 3-cent pieces. These used to have useful places
> in monetary transactions. Now, people are asking "Of what use, sir, is the
> penny?" Furthermore, the recent slide in demand for new
> higher-denomination
> coinage has forced the Mint to reduce its output of what used to be their
> core business in business strikes.
>
> Needless to say, all of this does not bode well for, and is detrimental to
> the interests of collectors. IMO we are best served under the conditions
> of
> a sound economy and a stable dollar.
>
< I tend to agree that it is almost incomprehensible why there has not
been more inflation in the U.S.A. as of early 2010. But perhaps the
vast military spending and financial industry bailouts have been more
than offset by the collapse in house and commercial real estate prices
and the unwillingness of lenders to advance new monies to borrowers at
a sufficient pace to spur prices.
>
> oly
To the extent that economics is "the dismal science," the first part is
patently clear to anyone who has delved into it. But like all the other
behavioral disciplines, it's "science" component only goes so far. After
that, it depends on the art of the practitioner. Even then, economists are
at the point where the earliest (al)chemists were centuries ago. They could
accurately measure chemical characteristics before and after reactions; but
they had no idea what was going on in the process, and they were limited to
crude depictions of physical analogs such as atoms being little solid balls
of matter.
So even after the economists have drawn all the graphs and tables and
iterated all their equations, like the ancient chemist's test beaker, a
national economy still is a mysterious black box. Events and data go in one
end, behavior comes out the other. Remember stagflation, where two
supposedly offsetting events (a stagnant economy and inflation) left
economists scratching their heads? That wasn't in the traditional models,
but that's what we got from the black box. Explanations and revisions of
theory came well after the fact.
Ditto for the lack of inflation and a continuing strong dollar at a time
when you might expect the opposite. IMO you're right, the Great Recession
and the financial sector meldowns and other forces have been a major damper
on inflation and a sinking dollar. (And let's not forget the damping effect
of troop deployment on unemployment rates.)
So at some point we will face the seemingly contradictory situation that
with recovery will come certain bad things like pent-up inflation and
erosion of the dollar and a bump in unemploment. The crucial question will
be whether those effects can be held to a "soft landing" or will they flare
into the cataclysmic Weimar scenario that you are wont to remind us of.
All we can do for now is stare at the black box and wait to see what
emerges.
Nominal numismatic reference: If we end up with a Weimar scenario, forget
new coinage. It'll take a bank box of presibux to buy a candy bar. That
Weimar loaf of bread will require an armored car delivery. Common U.S.
coins will be sold by the pound to give budding young numismatists and
collectors in other countries something cheap to sift through.
Except for self-serving congressional mandates for commems and odd-ball
designs, the Mint's entire production will shift to meet the skyrocketing
demand for bullion coins. (Although we shouldn't totally rule out the
possibility of a few runs of base metal coins in the $1,000 - $100,000
range.) Hoard all PM specimens and spend all your common modern business
strikes while you can still buy something with them. And a note (so to
speak) to investors - stock up on the stock of whatever companies supply
Uncle Sam with the special paper and presses and high-tech security gimmicks
used in printing currency. As currency printing goes into 24/7 overdrive,
their value might even stay a step ahead of the hyper-inflation.
oly
> In a recent message Peter <w2...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > On Apr 18, 7:59 am, oly <oly2...@aol.com> wrote:
>
> > > There would be no means to "converge" unless the intrinsic values of
> > > the coins of the two countries were exactly the same.
>
> > Well, yes. That was a part of my point. Both countries used the
> > groat (4 pence). It was the Scots that were using less silver in the
> > coin. I am guessing that in a united kingdom, there would be pressure
> > that the same coin should have somewhat similar properties.
>
> When James VI of Scotland became King of England also as James I, the two countries
> remained separate despite having a single monarch.
>
> It was not until the Act of Union in the reign of Anne that the decision was
> made to have a common currency, and the Edinburgh Mint worked hard to produce
> UK type coins to replace the old Scottish currency.
>
> --
> Coins of the UK :http://www.coins-of-the-uk.co.uk
> Sent using RISCOS using VirtualAcorn-SA running on a PC
> ... He's not dead, Jim, he's just metabolically challenged.
I think we know well enough about the historical part - the question
is more along the lines of what constituted "money" in those days,
compared to today.
The order of the State could not force the valuation and circulation
of a coin at a much higher tariff than its intrinsic value in the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Thus the two systems could not
"converge" unless the coins were physically the same.
Today, the fabric of the coin is typically divorced from its value.
The State can and does order the token coin's acceptance in the
marketplace.
It is important to note that the State couldn't do that, that people
resisted such fiat three and four centuries ago - if James I had
arbitrarily ordered that Scottish coins be accepted at the same value
as the English coins, all the English coins would have disappered
overnight and only the base(baser) coins would have been left in
circulation.
But I think we've been over the topic of the evolution of the "United
Kingdom" fairly recently.
oly
Peter
> In a recent message Peter <w2...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > On Apr 18, 7:59 am, oly <oly2...@aol.com> wrote:
>
> > > There would be no means to "converge" unless the intrinsic values of
> > > the coins of the two countries were exactly the same.
>
> > Well, yes. That was a part of my point. Both countries used the
> > groat (4 pence). It was the Scots that were using less silver in the
> > coin. I am guessing that in a united kingdom, there would be pressure
> > that the same coin should have somewhat similar properties.
>
> When James VI of Scotland became King of England also as James I, the two countries
> remained separate despite having a single monarch.
>
> It was not until the Act of Union in the reign of Anne that the decision was
> made to have a common currency, and the Edinburgh Mint worked hard to produce
> UK type coins to replace the old Scottish currency.
>
> --
> Coins of the UK :http://www.coins-of-the-uk.co.uk
> Sent using RISCOS using VirtualAcorn-SA running on a PC
> ... He's not dead, Jim, he's just metabolically challenged.
Oops, yes.