184 WEAR OF COIN. 



CHAP. XXIII. 



or curiosity than to put it in circulation. The 

 less additional loss on the sixpences may be ac- 

 counted for from the circumstance that most of 

 those pieces had by wear become so thin that they 

 would have broken in two when they had lost more 

 than forty per cent, of their standard weight, and 

 instead of being worth, as bullion, their original 

 value of sixpence, were not worth more than three- 

 pence halfpenny. The shillings, as being the com- 

 monest pieces, are the coins on which the greatest 

 reliance may be placed in any calculation. Their 

 value far exceeded that of all the other pieces, and 

 may therefore be assumed as the fittest scale of 

 depreciation by wear. 



The loss on the shillings in this last experiment 

 was at the rate of about five per cent, in ten years, 

 which agrees with what has been before estimated 

 as the loss on the new coinage since 1816, or about 

 one part in two hundred in each year. 



It is to be observed that this wear on the silver 

 coin between 1787 and 1798, was a proof of the 

 degree of loss produced on that particular descrip- 

 tion of silver coin which was in circulation at that 

 period. Now every one whose recollection carries 

 him back to that time will bear testimony to the 

 fact that the shillings by wear had almost all lost 

 the faintest traces of any impression having been 

 made upon them. No legend was visible, nor 

 could the outlines of the head enable the reign 

 to be determined. They were for the most part 



