KING EDWARD COINS.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXVI, Issue 8071, 18 March 1901, Page 4

KING EDWARD COINS.

It will be a very long time, some years probably, before Victorian coins disappear from circulation and King Edward coins are universal. This is a matter upon which there is a great amount- of public misunderstanding. A (Daily Mail representative elicited as definite a statement as was jiossible from the mint authorities.

"A good many people seem to think," said Mr Mathews, tile chief clerk and registrar, "that Victorian coins will be called in, and that-, too, at an early date. Such a thing is practically impossible. "lii the first place, it may be some little time before any King Edward coins at all are minted. Before any steps whatever are taken in this direction, a proclamation will have to be issued by his Majesty the King, the designs for the new money will have to ba submitted and approved, and after that the dies will have to be made. "When the new coinage commences there can be no complete change all at once. The new money will slowly and gradually take the place of the old, just as new money replaces other at the present time. The enormous circulation of Victorian coinage has to be taken into consideration, and it piakes it impossible to call it in till it is more or less exhausted.

"The coins of Her late Majesty's Royal predecessors were still good money and in free circulation when her"Teign had proceeded some time, and only when they were becoming rare and most- of them had been disposed of was an Act of Parliament passed calling in tliis pre-Victoriaa money. Such a course rs most likely to be followed in the present instance. "In the meantime it is curious to note that the Mint, to its considerable annoyance, is receiving shoals of letter from all sorts and conditions of correspondents making various inquiries as to what is going to be done, and when."