MONEY: ITS ORIGIN AND VALUE. 3213 
to conclude that an average number of the coined pieces is still in existence. As 
gold and silver are both merchandise, they are used as merchandise when their 
intrinsic value is worth more than the accepted value of the coined pieces. 
Therefore, the value of coined money accepted by the Government is mostly a 
little higher than the value of the piece of metal used and the cost of coinage, 
which is, indeed, nothing else than a credit asked by the Government for the 
additional value. Nevertheless, even this method does not prevent that, sud- 
denly, somewhere in the world, the price of precious metals makes it profitable 
to melt down and sell coins in bars. From 6,500,000 of guineas coined during 
18 1 7 in England, very few are in existence, as directly after the emission, and 
in spite of strong laws, they were melted down and sold, because the gold in bars 
was worth more than in guineas. From 14,000,000 of Fredericsdor coined in 
Prussia from 1764 to 1837, the coinage of several years has, for the same reason, 
entirely disappeared, and the others were only kept in existence because the 
Government's treasury accepted them for five and two-thirds thalers, though they 
were worth only five and a third. The total coinage of the United States from^ 
1793 to 1880 is $1,438,000,000. 
The deterioration of coins in circulation is considerably larger than it is com- 
monly supposed to be. Everybody will remember having seen the older English 
half-crowns, shillings and sixpence, coined from standard silver (14.8), with 
scarcely a trace of the stamping. A careful investigation of those pieces showed 
that the half-crowns had lost nearly 15 per cent, the shillings 20 per cent, and the 
sixpences often 45 per cent of their original value. The 50,000,000 livres coined 
in 24, 12 and 6 sous pieces in France from 1726 to 1794 had lost, when with- 
drawn, according to Say's statement, one fourth of their weight. Therefore, by 
friction in circulation twelve million livres' worth were lost entirely in sixty-eight 
years. Well alloyed coins, as the Prussian thalers, show^ for pieces fifty years in. 
circulation, an average loss of i.i per cent. Therefore out of one hundred and. 
five millions supposed to be in circulation each year, the value of 21,000 has been 
lost in the pockets or money-bags. The loss by smaller coins is, of course, larger.. 
The chemical examination of old money-bags used in the Government treasury 
was made for my father, and proved that those bags contained more silver than 
it had been thought before. I remember the following fact which happened to 
occur fifty years ago in Koenigsberg, Prussia. A part of loans contracted by the 
Russian Empire with Hope in Amsterdam, two millions in gold, was transported, 
in a mail coach. The gold, wrapped in paper, having become loose, had to be 
unpacked in Koenigsberg. The janitor of the banker, who superintended the 
packing, had received the old wrappings, and by burning them a jeweler found, 
them to contain $18 gold. 
The invention of photography has consumed since 1840 an enormous amount 
of silver, which is lost forever, as far as contained in the pictures. The produc- 
tion of nitrate of silver consumes year by year a large number of coins. From 
the smaller Hanoverian thalers before 1840, which contain a large percentage of 
pure silver, it will be difficult to find a specimen. The rapid disappearance of 
