I just ran into a fascinating read (if such economic things can ever be fascinating) on the details around France's issuance of Assignats right after the French Revolution in 1789. This was a paper entitled Paper Money Inflation in France, written in 1876 by Andrew White and presented here in the US. Part of France's financial issue was created by their support of our own 1776 Revolution, by the way. In any event, the 69 pages, all available online at the link above (paper reprints are plentiful too if one prefers to buy a copy), are a surprisingly easy read, and give great insight to the difficulty of issuing paper money not backed by gold or silver, and the disaster it created for France. If you want to see some assignats, I have a stack of them on my site here. Dave
This is fantastic Dave! What a great collection of Assignat you have! I am very excited to see this thread. I was recently looking for info on Assignat (English wiki page) Assignat (French wiki page) notes and related topics regarding bankruptcy and the history of economics in France after watching a video presentation* (at the 3:15 minute mark) by Rob McEwan of Minera Andes Inc. as he talks about owning gold, hyper-inflation and the history of economics. In his presentation, he mentioned having an Assignat note that he keeps in his office. He gives a brief description of their implementation and the economics of France in that era. He mentions some other interesting titles worth reading too. Cloudsweeper often cites McEwan in the Bullion Investing forums here on CT and I've found McEwan's insights helpful in understanding related topics about bullion investing. *AGM 2009 Presentation video links, Parts: 1 2 3 [YouTube] Thanks for the Google Books link / title and for sharing you collection. Brilliant display!
Thanks Krispy, that was an interesting commentary from Rob McEwan. He makes an interesting connection with buying gold instead of hanging on to paper money. With the French, the largest loss was borne (as usual) by the middle and lower classes, who didn't have the foresight or ability to get their assets invested in real property. I'm not too convinced on the current-day need to own gold or other investment metals, but certainly the point is very valid. Dave
I enjoyed reading the linked article, I have one out of left field sort of observation, I am good at out of left field observations, and that is that it seems to me that the currency that is used in inflationary times is also currency that is uninspired by artistic vision and debate, the debate seemed to me to be merely about how much, what rates, etal. I have little experience, but with the 1920's german inflationary notes, and the more recent Zimbabwe notes, the design (at least to me) are uninspired. I feel much the same way about the fractional currency issues, tho I can appreciate nice condition ones, I feel that they fall short of issues such as the educational note series in design and inspiration. Perhaps if the focus was not solely on how to feather the nests of those with political inside clout, that people would focus on design and inspiration that those other issues would show their inherent triviality.
chip: In part this 'uninspired' design may express the lack of vision at the time of implementation and given what can be afforded, however, in a crisis to keep up with rising inflation, the time line in which to conceive, design, approve, prepare, print and distribute notes is much, much more of an urgent and rushed process than in times when inflation is not as much of a pressing factor. In such a crush of time art and design factors go out the window. Think of the diagram below, you can only have two of the three: good, fast or cheap at any given time, not all three. US Notes easily take as much as two years to make their way into circulation after a redesign, where as in some time periods of economic crisis, countries facing such a crisis, print and distribute currency so quickly because the notes themselves have an incredibly short term of effectiveness. Usually inflationary notes are printed with dates indicating when they will expire, after which they're no good and replacements are then distributed or a new unit of currency is issued if something can be used to replace the failed currency. In short, designing, printing and distributing something on the magnitude of an artistic tour de force like the "educational notes" are not done in times of a national economic emergency, and inflationary notes are a race against many factors, prominently, time. Here's an older thread with a lot of examples of Hungarian currency, including several Inflationary notes from after WWII: Austria-Hungary, Hungarian & Hungarian Inflationary Paper Money: 1915 - 1989
