THE JUBILEE COINAGE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 7927, 19 July 1887, Page 4

THE JUBILEE COINAGE.

The Times publishes the following article on the long-talked-of alteration in the

coinage:—

"Among the events of the jubilee year | will be the accomplishment of the longr talked-of alteration in the portrait of the Sovereign on the coinage, and the substitution for the youthful 'effigy,' which was appropriate at the time of the accession, of one which bears the impress of more mature years and of the changes which they brinoin their train. The new portrait has been three or four years in preparation, and will doubtless represent the features of the Sovereign somewhat as they are now familiar to her subjects. Other alterations will also be introduced, chiefly in the method of abbreviating the customary inscriptions w in the arrangement of the* familiar embellishments, and thence there will be little outwardly to distinguish the new coins from the old. The proclamation which we published is in one point obscure: for its account of the five-pound piece, of the two-pound piece, and of the sovereign declares that each of these coins shall bave, 'for the reverse the image of St George, armed, sitting on horseback, attacking the dragon with a sword, and a broken spear upon the ground, and the date of the year, with a graining upon the edge;' The Mint anthoriiies probably know what they mean themselves, and the public will discover this meaning when the new money is issued; but we are not aware of any principles of interpretation which would enable a reader to decide where the description of the reverse terminates and that of the edge begins; or, in other words, whether the date is to be upon the former or upon the latter. There are precedents for both practices, inasmuch as the crown-pieces of the four Georges had the date upon the edge, together with the inscription ' Dens ct tutnmen: The crowns issued in the reign of William the Fourth, as well as the few which have been put into circulation during the reign of the Queen, have had the simple milled edge of which, wepresume, 'graining' must be regarded as the official description. Unless the word 'armed' is a correct technicality for the fact of carrying a sword, it would appear that Pistrucci's ' image' of St. George and the Dragon will be superseded; for in that the saint is unquestionably a study from the nude, save for buskins, a sort of helmet, and a cloak which is so arranged as not to cover him. The inscription is to be altered from ' Victoria D: G: Britanniar Reg: F: D:' to ' Victoria D. G. Britt: Eeg: V. D.,' the duplication of the letter T in the abbreviation of ' Britanniarum' being the sign of the plural, like the duplication of S in MSS. Various minor changes will serve to establish distinctions between all the

pieces of the new coinage and the equivalent values of the old, but none of these are of sufficient importance to require any detailed description. The most remarkable new feature will be

the addition to the present coinage of a fourshilling piece, or double florin, which will be like the now florin in everything but magnitude. These two pieces will have the four shields arranged crosswise on the reverse, but without words descriptive of value. It is difficult; to imagine what purpose the double florin will be calculated to serve; for the inconvenience of large and heavy silver coins .is too great to be overlooked. The crown piece is retained in the new proclamation, but no crown pieces have been issued

for many years, and the few which are still in circulation command an advance price as curiosities. All who remember the manifold inconveniences of French money prior to the gold coinage of the Empire, or the time when large amounts were paid in five-franc pieces, will be prepared to receive the double

fiorin, a coin of almost precisely similar value, and therefore of almost precisely similar size and weight, with anything but welcome. When the florin was first coined it was said

that its chief use was as a substitute for half-a-orown in the many little transactions which call for some transference of metal

■om a superior to an inferior, and that il

was as welcome to the more stingy among the giving classes as it was unpopular with those who were more^likely to be recipients. Possibly there is something still owing from the former to the latter, and the idea may be that the double florin, by supplying a substitute for the half-crown of considerably

greater value, may in time redress the balance. We are unable to discover any other

•cason for the introduction of the new coin,

There is nothing that costs 4s, although the euterprise of tradesmen may perhaps be trusted to supply this particular deficiency. The coin will be very heavy, very large, and very inconvenient. Perhaps it will be like tlie £5 piece, or the £2 piece, and will be struck only in small quantities, and reserved for the hands of collectors rather than placed at the disposition of the general public. There! arc few more handsome coins than the gold SOdol piece, or eagle, of the United States, and a comparatively small number of these am in actual circulation; but the instinctive desire for convenience restrains this number within very narrow limits, and the use of paper money and of cheques takes away all necessity for big and heavy coins of large value. As against big and heavy coins of small value the case is still more conclu-

sive, and we should not expect the strange piece of money to become popular in any of the countries within the four seas of Britain. Whether it may supply a want, or even whether uses may be found for it in some of

the colonies, arc questions on which we are scarcely prepared to express an opinion. If is not unreasonable to hope that the new coins, when ready for delivery to the

public, will be found to be of thoroughly artistic design and workmanship. They have, as wo have said already, been a long time in preparation; and much attention has of late years been given lo the long-neglected art of the medallist. Perhaps the most beautiful of all English coins is the sovereign of the reign of George 111, on the reverse of which |l Jistrucoi's George and dragon, from a die the work of the master himself, is encircled by the Garter with its motto. A specimen of this coin, in really good preservation, is a truly exquisite medal, and commands a price much beyond its intrinsic value. Perhaps Uio ugliest English coin is the llorin, the chief defect of which is the general flatness and feebleness of its surfaces; and we fear that the preservation of the four shields, by unduly diminishing the size of the armorial bearings, and thus rendering bold relief impossible, will tend to a perpetuation of the defect. The abandonment of the legend "one-tenth of a pound" is plainly wise; for it was adopted as an attempt to reconcile the advocates of a decimal coinage, then very active, to the introduction of a new piece of money which, while it was thus made to give a fallacious impression of being a step in the direction they desired, was in reality nothing of the kind. The double florin is obviously not a tenth of anything, and is not even any divisor of a halfsovereign ; so that its adoption may be regarded as a definite renunciation of the decimalists and all their works. The late Dr Farr, in former years, wrote many papers to recommend, on a variety of grounds, the issue of a piece of money of the value of 255, to be called a Victoria; and it was said that his recommendation was at one time so likely to be adopted that the prospect produced a flutter in the breasts of members of the medical profession, who were determined, as soon as the new coin made its appearance, to display their loyalty by insisting that it, instead of the mythical guinea, should be the standard by which their services to the public should be remunerated. Their hopes in this direction wore doomed to disappointment, and we fear tho double florin will not have any favourable bearing upon their interests. Indeed, the new coinage will leave matters pretty much where it finds them ; and thus, by disturbing nothing, will probably avoid the inconveniences which, more or less, it is the tendency of all changes to occasion.