What would you think of a return of Silver money?

[Seth]

but would the average guy one the street recognize a struck coin from a molded one?
plus the actual method of manufacture doesn't mean a thing to shaving and recasting the shaving for blanks.

Who cares? Stupidity is its own reward. Gold and sliver coinage have been used for thousands of years and people quickly learned how to test the coins for authenticity. That's what a "touchstone" is for. Also, in the old days, merchants kept a piece of marble or granite on the counter and would "ring" the coin against it. A true coin makes a clear bell-like sound, while a counterfeit makes a dull "clunk." That's where the phrase "rings true" comes from.

Coin-operated newspaper machines can detect slugs completely mechanically. They do two things; they weigh each coin and if the weight is not exactly correct, they reject the coin, they also test for density and rebound characteristics by bouncing the coin against a bar. If the coin does not hop the bar properly, it's a slug and it's rejected. It's really pretty ingenious how those mechanisms work.

Today, I believe mass-measuring devices are available that can detect the density of the coin and decide if it's gold or base metal.

Such devices and techniques will emerge and become commonplace should such coinage be in widespread use. I imagine that a sensor fitting into you smart phone capable of measuring the electrical resistance and capacitance of a coin to determine its authenticity might be possible.

[Warren Dew]

Counterfeiting only works if the face value of the counterfeited money exceeds the market value of the metal the coin is made of.

Correct. For a government that can invest in facilities as sophisticated as the U.S. mint, that works as long as the face value of real coins exceeds the market value of the metal they are made of, which is true for most coins today.

Obviously it would not work for coins whose value is based only on their metal content, like modern gold coins.

[Svartalf]

You certainly underestimate the criminal element... even in the time of touchstones, trebuchet scales, ringing and biting tests and other detections, coiners did manage to pass clever fakes to even careful merchants... I don't want to see what a savvy metallurgist could do for alloys of similar mass, density and magnetic properties... just cheaper.

[Seth]

You certainly underestimate the criminal element... even in the time of touchstones, trebuchet scales, ringing and biting tests and other detections, coiners did manage to pass clever fakes to even careful merchants... I don't want to see what a savvy metallurgist could do for alloys of similar mass, density and magnetic properties... just cheaper.

Nobody said it was easy. Still, it's no more of a risk than what we've got now, and it's a hell of a lot better to have coinage with intrinsic value and put the burden of verifying it on the consumer.

[Svartalf]

You forget the prime reason, beside extending limited treasury resources and increased seignorage, why currency emitters kept devaluating the coinage back when the value of coin was supposed to match that of precious metal inside, and why states eventually resorted to openly striking billon coins and printing banknotes and why the very concept of even vaguely matching facial value with precious metal content was eventually dropped.

Precious coinage restricts monetary emission to the available stock of coinage metals that public and private owners are willing to devote to such use. The amount of precious metals available for coining is not compatible with the global economy. Reverting to such coinage would near instantly cause the kind of recession that would make 1930s dust bowl states look like the City of Prester John with gold for paving stone and silver for roof tiles.

[Seth]

You forget the prime reason, beside extending limited treasury resources and increased seignorage, why currency emitters kept devaluating the coinage back when the value of coin was supposed to match that of precious metal inside, and why states eventually resorted to openly striking billon coins and printing banknotes and why the very concept of even vaguely matching facial value with precious metal content was eventually dropped.

Precious coinage restricts monetary emission to the available stock of coinage metals that public and private owners are willing to devote to such use. The amount of precious metals available for coining is not compatible with the global economy. Reverting to such coinage would near instantly cause the kind of recession that would make 1930s dust bowl states look like the City of Prester John with gold for paving stone and silver for roof tiles.

Right, it's called "inflation," and governments use it to control the value of money, primarily so that they can meddle with the free markets to the benefit of bureaucrats and print as much money as they need to cover their deficit spending.

All going back on a gold/silver standard would do is to adjust the value of the money and pin it to something real. People will always manage barter and trade no matter what the form of money, but pinning its value to the markets rather than what some jackass at the Fed thinks it should be merely discommodes government.

Nothing prevents banks from issuing notes based on deposits of precious metal. The problem we have now is that since we went off the gold standard, the feds won't even let Congress inspect the gold stocks at Fort Knox to see if what we're supposed to have actually exists. It's entirely possible that it's been filched and sold off. So the dollar has no basis in fact, and it's worth whatever Ben Bernanke and George Soros want it to be worth.

It's always better to have too few dollars chasing too many goods than having too many dollars chasing too few goods, because a shortage of money is not a shortage of goods, and barter and trade can always substitute for cash, whereas a devalued dollar combined with a lack of goods is fatal to an economy. Just ask the Weimar Republic.

[Pappa]

but would the average guy one the street recognize a struck coin from a molded one?
plus the actual method of manufacture doesn't mean a thing to shaving and recasting the shaving for blanks.

I've seen moulded fake pound coins. They are not easy to tell apart from the real thing, though I do remember feeling there was something not quite right about them.

[Feck]

but would the average guy one the street recognize a struck coin from a molded one?
plus the actual method of manufacture doesn't mean a thing to shaving and recasting the shaving for blanks.

I've seen moulded fake pound coins. They are not easy to tell apart from the real thing, though I do remember feeling there was something not quite right about them.

Huge amounts are in circulation .....

[Pappa]

but would the average guy one the street recognize a struck coin from a molded one?
plus the actual method of manufacture doesn't mean a thing to shaving and recasting the shaving for blanks.

I've seen moulded fake pound coins. They are not easy to tell apart from the real thing, though I do remember feeling there was something not quite right about them.

Huge amounts are in circulation .....

You can spot older ones quite easily, because they soften around the edges.

[Svartalf]

You forget the prime reason, beside extending limited treasury resources and increased seignorage, why currency emitters kept devaluating the coinage back when the value of coin was supposed to match that of precious metal inside, and why states eventually resorted to openly striking billon coins and printing banknotes and why the very concept of even vaguely matching facial value with precious metal content was eventually dropped.

Precious coinage restricts monetary emission to the available stock of coinage metals that public and private owners are willing to devote to such use. The amount of precious metals available for coining is not compatible with the global economy. Reverting to such coinage would near instantly cause the kind of recession that would make 1930s dust bowl states look like the City of Prester John with gold for paving stone and silver for roof tiles.

Right, it's called "inflation," and governments use it to control the value of money, primarily so that they can meddle with the free markets to the benefit of bureaucrats and print as much money as they need to cover their deficit spending.

All going back on a gold/silver standard would do is to adjust the value of the money and pin it to something real. People will always manage barter and trade no matter what the form of money, but pinning its value to the markets rather than what some jackass at the Fed thinks it should be merely discommodes government.

Nothing prevents banks from issuing notes based on deposits of precious metal. The problem we have now is that since we went off the gold standard, the feds won't even let Congress inspect the gold stocks at Fort Knox to see if what we're supposed to have actually exists. It's entirely possible that it's been filched and sold off. So the dollar has no basis in fact, and it's worth whatever Ben Bernanke and George Soros want it to be worth.

It's always better to have too few dollars chasing too many goods than having too many dollars chasing too few goods, because a shortage of money is not a shortage of goods, and barter and trade can always substitute for cash, whereas a devalued dollar combined with a lack of goods is fatal to an economy. Just ask the Weimar Republic.

While it does have to do with inflation, you still missed my point, I was talking money supply, a healthy increase in which won't cause a fully proportionate increase of the former... and you can't pin money on anything now, as it's been nearly a century that the supply has been beyond the reserves of anything you could pin it onto Pinning money on any real value would cause a massive drop in money supply, and a drop in value of former units held by economic actor far beyond the official new value. Our consumerism based economy would collapse as a pricked balloon as people suddenly found out that they are poor as they could not afford to match their fiduciary wealth with metal backed one..

[Gawdzilla Sama]

It would be handy if we were expecting an outbreak of werewolves.

[JimC]

It would be handy if we were expecting an outbreak of werewolves.

Wolves?

Where?

Tasmania?

No....

Randomness fail, somewhat drunk...

[Svartalf]

It would be handy if we were expecting an outbreak of werewolves.

The time of blunderbusses you could load with anything, including coins, is somewhat past.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

It would be handy if we were expecting an outbreak of werewolves.

Wolves?

Where?

Tasmania?

No....

Randomness fail, somewhat drunk...

[Gawdzilla Sama]

It would be handy if we were expecting an outbreak of werewolves.

The time of blunderbusses you could load with anything, including coins, is somewhat past.

*look over his collection of guns*

Not really.