Debasement
Videos
A debasement of coinage is the practice of lowering the intrinsic value of coins, especially when used in connection with commodity money, such as gold or silver coins, while continuing to circulate t
A 16th or 17th century hoard of coin clippings discovered in Derbyshire and recorded in the Portable Antiquities Scheme.
Shears used for coin clipping in the 17th century
An unclipped siliqua
A clipped siliqua
Gresham's law
Videos
In economics, Gresham's law is a monetary principle stating that "bad money drives out good". For example, if there are two coins in circulation containing metal of different value, which are accepted
Debasement
…certain face value, but with less metal content than previous issues. There will be an incentive to bring the old coins to the mint for re-minting – see Gresham's law. A revenue, called seigniorage, is made on this minting process. When done by an individual, precious metal was physically removed from the coin, which…
Sir Thomas Gresham
A stack of twenty Walking Liberty half dollars (left), which contain 90% silver. In an example of Gresham's law, these coins were quickly hoarded by the public after the Coinage Act of 1965 debased half dollars to contain only 40% silver, and then were debased entirely in 1971 to base cupronickel (right).