"So much for hard currency." That's what's nice about 16p nails. They're already base metal. And after the rubble stops bouncing the world's gonna need 'em.
Well, he "had" to somehow pay for his war. Happened before Frederick/Friedrich, happened after him. As you may know, this year is the 300th anniversary of Frederick's birth. The Federal Republic issued a €10 coin on that occasion, and a museum in Berlin has an exhibition about him, focusing on his coinage: http://www.smb.museum/smb/kalender/details.php?objID=25255&lang=en Of course people blamed Ephraim for the bad or fake money, but Frederick protected him, making it obvious who was behind this ... Christian
There were several ways of making money that way. A fairly common problem - not just in Prussia and not just in those years - was that the person or private consortium that operated a mint would try and reduce the precious metal content in the coins that it made. As long as nobody else notices it, that is an extra profit ... Ironically, Frederick wanted to do away with that, make the mints government operations and turn the mintmasters into (well paid) employees. He wanted to establish, with the help of Philipp Graumann, the Prussian currency as an important one in Europe, and drive the "foreign money" out of Prussia. A new taler was introduced which soon became popular. Then again, Frederick also wanted to fight wars, and that costs money. He occupied Saxony (beginning of the Seven Years War), and then had Saxon and Polish coins - Saxony and Poland were a personal union at that time - made with a lowered silver content. As far as I know, the mint in Leipzig even manipulated the dates: Coins made in 1757, during the war, were dated 1753 or '54 ... Initially those manipulated pieces were not supposed to circulate in Prussia proper. Except that a little later Ephraim and his partners supplied the required "war money" by reducing the gold or silver content of Prussian coins too. Again the years of issue were manipulated. Not only that; while the fine weight was reduced, the total weight of such a piece continued to be the very same. Thus a quick coin scale check, which was common among dealers, would not reveal the difference. Here is a Wikipedia article about the "Ephraimiten". Hope it is understandable; looks like a quick'n'dirty translation of the German article to me. Christian
