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Message:: [QUOTE="kaparthy, post: 1803043, member: 57463"]Certainly.  In American numismatics we call them "evasions."  The economics of minting made coppers pretty much a loss for almost everyone who tried them. The Woods Hibernias and all the rest just were hopefuls.  But people needed small change; copper coins meet a necessity.  So, locals of various kinds, times, and places, made their own (underweight) coppers.  To avoid being charged with counterfeiting - and being drawn and quartered: ouch! - they blundered the legends: "Georgius Blah-blah-blah" or "George Rules Britons Isles" or anything but the Regal Name.  It was not until Boulton and Watt at the Soho Mint that coppers became profitable for the makers and the users alike.  This was always a dusty area of economics, even for the free market people.  Compared to most of us here, Milton Friedman and Ludwig von Mises knew next to nothing about money qua money.  However, recently published, you can find THE BIRMINGHAM BUTTON MAKERS by George Selgin.  He tells the story of how private machinists and inventors created the first truly modern coinage. And just to say, also, even the standard numismatic references hardly say much.  Everyone focuses on government money.  The Breen Encyclopedia has more citations, but Breen, too, had his own myopia.[/QUOTE]