Last Gold Coins to Circulate?

Discussion in 'Coin Chat' started by brandon08967, Apr 12, 2017.

  1. brandon08967

    brandon08967 Young Collector

    Just wondering if any gold coins were made to circulate after the onset of the Great Depression.
     
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  3. swish513

    swish513 Penny & Cent Collector

    I didn't know gold was ever meant to "circulate." At least when it came to the common populace. I was always under the impression that gold was meant for kings, or the like. Common people weren't meant to own gold. My 3rd-great grandfather, who served in the US Civil War, wrote in our ancestry book, "We received $16 per month for services rendered and if we wanted a gold dollar we paid $2.80 in greenbacks to get it."
     
  4. jwitten

    jwitten Well-Known Member

    $2 1/2 in 1929 was worth about $35 today. Most people have spent bills larger than that.
     
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  5. SuperDave

    SuperDave Free the Cartwheels!

    Have a look at what happened to US gold coin mintages in 1861 if you want to know whether or not it was meant for circulation. :)
     
  6. ToughCOINS

    ToughCOINS Dealer Member Moderator


    It was not that gold did not circulate that drove the higher price in greenbacks. It was an as-yet un-established level of trust in the "Greenbacks" . . . a brand new issuance of the federal government to pay the Union Army when the supply of gold had nearly been exhausted.

    Gold did circulate, but not as much as did silver and copper. It was not the province of the common man, but there is no shortage of low grade gold coins in collections and inventories today. Just look around for high grade examples of conditionally scarce dates, and you'll see that many cannot be found in un-circulated grades at all . . . sometimes evidence that many were melted, but also that some were truly "working coins". One exception being the many that were carried for decades as pocket pieces.
     
  7. sakata

    sakata Devil's Advocate

    Gold has circulated throughout history, with ups and down due to popularity and supply. What you are referring to during the civil ware is just an example of Gresham's Law. That was actually a great deal. That gold dollar contains close to 1/20th of an ounce, which would cost around $65 today.
     
  8. longarm

    longarm Well-Known Member

  9. afantiques

    afantiques Well-Known Member

    British gold circulated routinely until the end of 1914 when the outbreak of WWI saw it all replaced by at first an emergency issue of Treasury notes of £1 and 10/- denomination (previously the lowest value note in use was the £5 note) and later by a better designed and printed issue of Treasury notes, and after the war these were replaced by Bank of England pound and ten shilling notes. If there was any public outrage at this I cannot find it reported. At the time the general populace were intensely patriotic. THere was no 'confiscation' or compulsory exchange of gold for paper, just as it passed through the banks the gold was filtered out and if you withdrew cash it came as paper.

    So for Britain the date is 1914.

    In practice, as soon as the paper money started to inflate, the gold coins would command a premium wherever you were and they'd not be circulating at face value. By the 1920s the British gold sovereign was worth almost 50% over face, now it is worth 200 times face.

    The strain of this double value for gold and paper is reflected in US banking and fiscal processes into the 20s. Using WWI as an excuse to decouple paper from gold might have been a good idea.
     
  10. V. Kurt Bellman

    V. Kurt Bellman Yes, I'm blunt! Get over your "feeeeelings".

    Actually, for pretty much ALL of Europe, the date was 1914. From 1865-1914 there was a thing called the Latin monetary union. In fact, it existed on paper through about 1927, but it was observed more in the breach than the honoring of it after '14. France, Italy, Belgium and Switzerland all had identical currencies when denominated in terms of silver and gold. That's why 20Fr Roosters and 20 lire and 20 Swiss Franc Vrenellis are all a common weight. Interesting fact - one reason the Stella was proposed in the U.S. was to make a coin compatible with the 20's of the Latin Monetary Union.

    What made the currency union fall apart? Aside from the war, CHEATING. By that time, more nations were involved and they started cheating on the fineness of their silver and gold coins.

    Now tell me again - it WHAT UNIVERSE is a "gold standard" halfway even close to a good idea? Not in any I can see.
     
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  11. V. Kurt Bellman

    V. Kurt Bellman Yes, I'm blunt! Get over your "feeeeelings".

    To answer your specific question, no, the world finally woke up and did away with the idea.
     
  12. kevin McGonigal

    kevin McGonigal Well-Known Member

    My father used to tell me that he would go with his father who worked at a steel mill during WW I (Midvale in Philly) every Friday after work to have his paycheck cashed. His father insisted on its being cashed, not for paper, but for specie in the form of gold and silver coins. The cashing of the check was provided not by some local bank but from the local bar which provided a check cashing service for customers who were unlikely to do much business at a bank. My father loved this weekly Friday afternoon activity. His father would buy a beer for five cents and my father would chow down on the free pretzels and cheese while my grandfather did his 'banking'. Now, if today's banks operated like those saloons the banks would be doing a much brisker business. By the way, my father learned early about keeping cash around the house in specie and passed that onto his kids. Back in the early 1960's my sister worked at the Federal Reserve Bank and every week she would bring home several silver dollars which she was able to get from the bank as part of her pay, including some nice BU Morgans. Perhaps one of the reasons for my interest in numismatics came ultimately from my grandfather's liking for specie payment as well as good lager and pilsner.
     
  13. GoldBug999

    GoldBug999 Well-Known Member

    Gold coins and a golden pilsner - now you're talkin'!
     
  14. scottishmoney

    scottishmoney Buh bye

    Countries such as Iran and Turkey have a tradition of bullion coins that trade regularly for the actual value of the coin at the moment. If you take your Azadi or Kurush coin to the bazaar you will find someone to take it after the obligatory weighings etc.
     
  15. swish513

    swish513 Penny & Cent Collector

    So why do so many UNC gold coins exist? From Rome (or even earlier) to today? I didn't say they didn't circulate, I said they weren't intended to circulate. Gold was meant for royalty. Traded from this empire to that, from king to king, or in our times, bank to bank. There's a reason crowns were made of gold not silver or copper. The common person wasn't supposed to obtain it, nor use it. That made it even more precious.
     
  16. afantiques

    afantiques Well-Known Member

    I didn't say they didn't circulate, I said they weren't intended to circulate.
    Gold was meant for royalty. Traded from this empire to that, from king to king


    .Just not true, gold coins were commonly circulated and used by anyone with enough money to need a higher value coin. To say otherwise is like saying $100 bills are only for the superrich people. The proof of this exists in many books, fiction and non-fiction, written from the 17th Century onwards. I mention this period because the English is near enough to modern English to be easily readable.
    For a historical account of how cash was used, you will find many references in Samuel Pepys Diaries. He was careful about keeping his personal accounts and sometimes mentions how much cash he has on hand in gold and silver. He was willing to pay a small premium for gold coins if needed and in both income and expenditure he mentions receiving and paying out in gold, usually referred to as 'pieces'.
    A servant earning 5 guineas a year (plus board and lodging) would have little need for gold coins, but anyone a bit higher up the social scale, and many if not most shopkeepers would handle gold in the same way high denomination bills circulate roday.

    Gold coins were just normal money, they just got a lot less circulation than coppers or silver because most transactions were small enough not to need them.

    Further evidence is the existance of coin weights and coin balances, which would not have been made in such large numbers if there was no common need for them.
     
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