HOW COINS WEAR

Waikato Independent, Volume XXIII, Issue 3146, 4 December 1923, Page 2

HOW COINS WEAR

LOSS DURING CIRCULATION There is a great deal of loss from wear in the silver coins in circulation. Half-crowns, florins, shillings, and sixpences decrease in value annually at least £II,OOO. A wonderful electric instrument known as the induction balance shows that a coin actually loses a fraction of weight when a finger is passed over it. Hnt it is when coins rub against each other in people’s pockets and purses, drop on a counter or on to the ground and so on, that they really wear. “If you ‘ring’ a coin to try its genuineness, you remove some of the metal of which, it is composed.” The smaller the value of the coin, the greater the wear, as it is in use more constantly. Experiments show that in ICO years £I.OO worth of half-crowns would lose £l3 11/S of their value. The same sum in shillings would decrease in value by £3O 14/1, whereas sixpences to the value of £IOO would be worth less than half what; they wore originally, losing metal to the value of £SO 18/8. Nowadays when coins become very much worn they are withdrawn from circulation.