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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;medoraman, post: 1414134, member: 26302&quot;]I am going to go back to the origins of coinage.</p><p><br /></p><p>Gold, silver, and copper were used for centuries as barter items. The problem with them for barter is that they need to be reverified and reweighed at each transaction. This was inefficient and slowed down trade. The key to the increase in commerce was when these pieces of metal were standardized in weight into the prevailing currency system, and STAMPED BY THE GOVERNMENT AUTHORITY so that the weights and fineness were guaranteed.</p><p><br /></p><p>Any piece of metal, therefor, from the time to Lydia to current times, is not a coin unless stamped by the government authority issuing it. </p><p><br /></p><p>If a private entity issues metal disks, they are properly called medals/tokens. All privately issued gold rush gold were medal/token until the US government struck them. Then they became coins.</p><p><br /></p><p>Numismatically, a coin has the following identity:</p><p><br /></p><p>1. Weight tolerance within accepted deviations</p><p>2. Stamp of government authority issuing and guaranteeing it</p><p>3. Unit of measure</p><p>4. Used as a form of money</p><p><br /></p><p>The fact that common usage now calls anything a coin that is round and metallic does not factor into the true numismatic definition. I can list 100 different ways people erroneously call something a coin. That they are using the word improperly does not change its original, correct, definition.</p><p><br /></p><p>I know I am old school, but that is how coins were created, and how they transformed the world. Until the piece of metal had a government authority marking them, they were still just lumps of metal that had to be weighed and checked for purity at each transaction.</p><p><br /></p><p>I will grant you that for periods of time privately issued gold medals/tokens were close to coins in that they traded like them. This was only due, however, to the fact that there was a shortage of real coinage to use instead. In every single case once adequate real coinage was in circulation, the private gold medals/tokens ceased to be used in commerce regularly.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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