Coins – why are some so big?

February 14th, 2007

Before children really understand the value of coins most of them think that the fifty cent coin (in Australia) is worth the most – because it’s the biggest. Most kids, at some point, ask me why this is and why the dollar coin is so much smaller.

The reason is found in the history of coins. All Australian, American and English coins and many more, derive from the coins used in old England and before that in many other countries in the world. The use of silver coins dates back 4000 years and gold coins date back to 600 BC.

Tokens

Coins were not always tokens, as they are today. A dollar is valued at a dollar and we can buy a dollars worth of goods with it but it does not cost a dollar to make the coin. Once it cost a pound to make a pound coin and it was still worth a pound even if it were melted down.

Pounds and shillings

Many countries now use “metric” coins – dollars and cents in Australia and America and pounds and pence in Britain. Before that many used pounds, shillings and pence. There were 12 pennies to the shilling and 20 shillings to the pound. Like today, the smaller value coins were copper coloured, the middle value ones silver and the high value ones gold.

Real gold

However, until the 19th century, these coins were actually made of precious or semi precious metals. The pound coin was made of real gold, a pounds worth of gold. Shillings were made of real silver, a shillings worth of silver and the penny coins were made of copper, yes you’ve guessed it, a pennies worth of copper.

When people of those times bought something worth a pound (and a pound was a lot of money on those days) they actually paid with a pounds worth of gold in the shape of a coin.

Because gold is much more valuable than silver the gold coins were often smaller than the silver ones, even though they were worth more. Copper was worth the least so a penny coin was quite big. Dishonest people would scape the edge off a coin and keep some of the metal for themselves.

Gold Standard

Eventually the coins were made of cheap metal and bank notes were used as well as coins. But until the first world war banks always held enough gold in their vaults to exchange any coins or notes that they issued. This was called the gold standard. But during the war Britain had to produce a lot of money to pay for weapons and this was dropped. Today’s coins are purely tokens and any amount of money can be made. But the coins still resemble the old ones.

Blind

Coins also have to be different from each other so that blind people can feel the difference from one coin to the next. Try it and you’ll find it’s quite easy to feel the difference.

Even in Roman times the date and the portrait of the ruler were put on coins. This makes coins very useful for archaeologists because a coin dates the age of the place they are excavating.

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