What an Old Coin Collection Tells Us about Money from the Past \ stacker news ~econ

pull down to refresh

What an Old Coin Collection Tells Us about Money from the Past

594 sats \ 10 comments \ @Undisciplined 18 Dec 2023 econ

One of my favorite examples of how governments generate economic losses is the production of pennies and nickels, both of which cost more to produce than they can legally be spent for. Minting those coins is just pure loss generation.

What an Old Coin Collection Tells Us about Money from the Past By Daniel Kowalski "A coin collection can tell a lot about this nation's monetary history, and especially what happened nearly 60 years ago after the government debased U.S. coinage. This history is not having a happy ending."

view all related items

346 sats \ 4 replies \ @siggy47 18 Dec 2023

I am very interested in ancient Roman coins. It's fascinating to trace the percentage of silver in the standard denarius from the reign of Augustus to the last of the emperors. The debasement is obvious. The amount of silver in the coin was gradually reduced as the empire crumpled. I have some denari from late in the empire that don't even resemble silver. The term to describe these coins is billon.

182 sats \ 3 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 18 Dec 2023

I'm only passingly familiar with Roman debasement, but as I recall they tried all the tricks over the years: clipping, shaving, diluting.

Am I remembering correctly that Rome is where ridged coins were developed as a guard against coin shaving?

304 sats \ 2 replies \ @siggy47 18 Dec 2023

I don't think they had the technology for ridging, but I could be wrong. It certainly was a technique used later. Clipping was done frequently in ancient Rome.

53 sats \ 1 reply \ @Undisciplined OP 18 Dec 2023

I just did a quick check. Apparently, ridging (which is actually called reeding) was first seen in European coins in the 1500's.

304 sats \ 0 replies \ @siggy47 18 Dec 2023

Makes sense. Most of the Roman coins have really jagged, uneven edges if you can call them edges at all.

304 sats \ 4 replies \ @grayruby 18 Dec 2023

Didn't Kyle Bass buy millions of dollars worth of a certain era of nickels because the nickel content was worth 7 cents at the time and clearly even higher now.

325 sats \ 2 replies \ @grayruby 18 Dec 2023

The Canadian mint used to issue limited edition 20 for 20, 50 for 50 and 100 for 100 silver numismatic coins every holiday season. So you pay $20 to get a $20 silver coin and you have the upside that if silver goes up it could be worth more than $20.

Unfortunately the purchasing power of a $20 or $50 or $100 is eroding a lot faster than the value of the silver is increasing so it wasn't a very good trade after all.

I bought a bunch of them for myself and my son when he was younger. They look pretty cool but we would need silver to double for the silver content to be worth more than the face value of the coin and $20 ain't what it used to be.

My daughter has the fortunate benefit of being born after I learned about Bitcoin and started stacking sats so she doesn't need to worry about what she is going to do with a bunch of gold and silver coins in the future. She does have a couple gold and silver coins but not as much as my son who I was giving gold and silver to for Christmas and birthdays for years prior to finding Bitcoin.

100 sats \ 1 reply \ @Undisciplined OP 18 Dec 2023

I haven't bought gold or silver coins since before they hit their ATH about ten years ago. I actually very nearly timed the top exactly, but something came up and I didn't manage to get to the coin store to sell my silver. When the price started dropping I decided to just hold on to it.

All I do now is check the change I get and coins I find to see if any are worth more than face value. Those go straight into the piggy bank.

315 sats \ 0 replies \ @grayruby 18 Dec 2023

I almost sold my gold and silver when I moved out of the city. I called the dealer that I knew and trusted and set up an appointment and then cancelled last minute and decided to take it with me. I didn't really want to sell but my concern was if I ever did want to liquidate it I didn't know if I would find a dealer I could trust in a town vs the city, where I already had one (took years to find one, tried 3 others first) and I didn't want to drive two hours back to city if I felt the need to sell a couple coins.

Anyways, I thought I should hang on to it. Probably a bad idea. Should have sold and bought another half a bitcoin or whatever I would have gotten at the time.

100 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 18 Dec 2023

I don't know, but I hold onto nickels on the rare occasions when I get them. Any old coins or nickels go into my daughter's piggy bank.

My mom's always wanting to add garbage fiat quarters to the piggy bank and I have to come up with reasons not to let her that don't make me sound like a lunatic or an ingrate.