• Re: a long way from foreign coin

    From John Levine@21:1/5 to All on Sat May 13 13:21:39 2023
    According to Roy <montanawolf@outlook.com>:
    On 5/12/2023 3:36 PM, John Levine wrote:
    Other than the greenbacks during the Civil War the US government
    issued almost no paper money unti the Federal Reserve was created in
    1913.

    The US issued gold certificates from 1865 to 1933. Silver certificates
    were issued from 1865 to 1964

    A little arithmetic reveals that 1865 was over 75 years and two major
    wars after the Constitution was written. What does that have to do
    with regulating the value of foreign coins in the 1700s? The US after
    the Civil War was quite a long way from the nascent US of 1787, with
    one of the differences being a much larger economy so the foreign
    coins had become irrelevant, as they are now.

    In the 1800s the smallest gold certificate was $20, worth about $500
    today, so they were only used for large commercial transactions. Most
    paper money was banknotes, issued by banks with national charters and
    backed by US treasury bonds.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_certificate_(United_States)

    There are still silver certificates in circulation.

    Not really. The numismatic value is much higher than face value so
    theyre all in collections. The last series was 1953, where a $5 note
    is worth about $12 to a collector. I think I have a couple of old $2
    silver certificates somewhere. Wikipedia says they're only worth face
    value but in this case, it's wrong. I haven't seen a silver
    certificate in a very long time, and I'm old enough to know what they
    look like.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_certificate_(United_States)

    "As of December 2013 the Federal Reserve reported holding $11.037
    billion (face value) of these certificates."

    They're in a vault at the Fed, not circulating. I don't understand
    what your point is.
    --
    Regards,
    John Levine, johnl@taugh.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
    Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. https://jl.ly

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