The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1878-06-22 00:00:00

COINS GOING OUT.

The year's Mint Report shows, as usual, no
coinage of crowns. There has been no icsue of
crowns, we believe, since 1851, nor of groats or four-
penny pieces (except for Maunday money) since
1856. Half-crowns shared the fate of crowns for some
years after 1851, but in 1873 the Mint issued a circular
to bankers asking their opinion whether it would be
for the public convenience that the florin, first coined
in 1849, or that the half crown should be the coin
adopted, or that both should be in circulation; and
about two-thirds of the answers received were in
favour of having both in circulation. The coinage of
half-crowns was thereupon resumed, and above four
millions of them have been coined in the course of the
last four years, and about as many florins also. The
crown is a handsome coin, and the groat is sometimes
convenient.

The Evening Standard, commenting upon the Mint
Report, says The Mint Report for the last year
is neither more nor less than was to he expected. It
gives us a formal account of how we are provided with
pounds, shillings, and pennies, and other coins, but
tells us very little as to the condition of those
coins or tokens. And yet it is beyond question
that the state of our silver and bronze coinage is
not all that could be wished. The ugliness of such
silver coins as are most in use is only palliated by
the fact that they are soon battered and worn out
of all recognition of their ugliness ; the battered
appearance of such as were most handsome is
explained by the fact that for a generation they have
not been coined. The silver crown was once a well
looking piece of money, showing really good artistic
work. The public at large, which is rather in want
of a five-shilling piece, and is a little disposed to be
afraid of dwarf gold, is rather fond of the good old
"cart-wheel," and would like to see it oftener. But
none have been issued since 1851, and even a busy man
in small transactions may have hundreds of pounds
worth of silver change pass through his hands without
one of these coins so familiar a few years since. Happily
the half-crown, which, if not ad mirabl e, is at lea st respect.
able, has been spared to us, not by the vote of the
public, but for the convenience of the bankers. The
fault of it is that the pattern at the back is too com-
plicated to be good-looking, or to stand hard usage.
Perhaps not much sympathy is felt for the " groat "
—the technical name still retained for the fourpenny
piece, doomed to slow and steady extinction; but it
is a fact that those who deal much in small sums could
do very well with a good many more sixpences, groats,
and threepenny-pieces. There is no question but that
below the shilling we are too much dependent upon
bronze, and that in the matter of bronze we take just
what we can get, be it English, French, or Italian.
Every foreign bronze coin represents a loss to our
Mint and a gain to the Mint that put it into circula-
tion, and yet any one who looks at his change can see
that as time goes on the French coins become more
numerous. They used to be found at the rate of about
one in nine; the chances of getting one now ari about
one in six or seven in London. When will the Mint
relieve us of our silver tokens on which we can read
neither the reign nor the year, and give us enough
British bronze to do without the thousands of pounds'
worth of foreign auxiliaries now circulating amongst
us?