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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Urban_Lawyer, post: 1526909, member: 36361&quot;]Small caveat: this is going a little outside of my knowledge / professional experience, and the answer only applies to the United States, but here it goes --</p><p><br /></p><p>There are two issues here, (1) who owns the paper / coin the money is represented by and (2) do you ever take title in the representative money the coins and paper stands for?</p><p><br /></p><p>(1) -- In the United States (in a purely legal tender sense, not a collector&#039;s sense) title in the coins and paper remains in the issuing authority and does not vest in the holder.&nbsp; If you possess money, you are a &quot;holder&quot; and may pass the money for goods and services as you wish.&nbsp; However, you are prohibited by law (18 U.S.C. 333 (2010)) from defacing or destroying paper notes and, by administrative regulation, from destroying one cent coins and five cent coins (nickels) by melting, etc etc.&nbsp; There is a statute pertaining to &quot;defacement,&quot; 18 U.S.C. 331 (2010), but this does not pertain to melting silver coins which remains (at least if you look at prosecution) legal.&nbsp; The benefit of holding title permits the recall of banknotes if necessary and keeps the government from having to replace millions of melted nickels at a loss.</p><p><br /></p><p>(2) -- Title in the money.&nbsp; I guess this depends on your definition, but legally the answer is no.&nbsp; You (at best) would have a license to use the representative money as you wish subject to law.&nbsp; The government has an interest in maintaining its currency supply for a variety of economic reasons and the actual, physical &quot;money&quot; works in different legal ways that do not compare to having title in the money.&nbsp; Example:</p><p><br /></p><p>Federal Reserve Notes:&nbsp; These are pieces of paper that are backed up by &quot;collateral&quot; held by the federal reserve.&nbsp; The collateral is usually debt from bonds, etc. held by the federal reserve.&nbsp; Because the collateral is not specific to each note, the holder cannot say &quot;I hold a note that is a portion of bond no. 3820224 that was created on 8/4/10.&quot;&nbsp; The government has a HUGE amount of flexibility in controlling the money supply this way.</p><p><br /></p><p>United States Notes:&nbsp; These are rare but I have gotten them in change.&nbsp; This is a note from the U.S. treasury that is a &quot;letter of credit.&quot;&nbsp; In US commercial law, a letter of credit is an instrument that unconditionally pledges collateral or assets for the bearer&#039;s use.&nbsp; Example: in the old days before electronic banking a person could get a letter of credit from a commercial bank, stating that the person has X amount of funds on deposit with the bank and the bank unconditionally promises to pay the funds to a certain entity if certain conditions are met.&nbsp; This was good if the old-time person wanted to conduct business in a foreign state or country where a check drawn on the bank would cause suspicion.&nbsp; The United States note says, in essence, the government has assets that are represented by the paper and the government unconditionally promises to pay any bearer these assets.&nbsp; Of course, you can&#039;t do that anymore, but you get the point.</p><p><br /></p><p>Old coins and certificates (gold and silver) represented / represent actual monetary metals.&nbsp; I guess arguably these would transfer title, but the government in practice still held possession on most of them.</p><p><br /></p><p>I honestly don&#039;t know what backs modern, non-precious coins.</p><p><br /></p><p>Hope that helps.&nbsp; I don&#039;t know how the Euro system works.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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