Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-04-20
FINENESS OF COINS.
American Coinage Compared With
Those of Europe and japan.
From the New York Times.

From the New York Times
Considerable attention is being given at
the moment by the officials OF the Treasury
Department to the question OF the relative
flneness of American and foreign gold coins.
The investigation, if II may be called such.
that is now being conducted into the mat
ter, is the outcome of the experience Of a
prominent New York city banking house.
which some time ago made a shipment OF
American gold coin 10 Paris and received
payment for the coin from the Bank OF
France on the basis of 1904 flneness, al
though the legal fineness of American gold
coin is 9o0-looo The result OF this ship
ment was drawn to the attention OF Secre-
tary of the Treasury Shaw by the firm
which made the shipment The Secretary
turned the matter over to the director or
the mint, under whose direction steps have
been taken to secure additional information
in regard 10 the allowance in the matter Of
abroad.
The incident renders interesting a com
parison of the fneness of our gold coins as
compared with those of other countries. es-
peclaily with the coins that legally have
the same degree OF fineneSs as those Of the
United States. The most serViccab!e record
for such comparison is that Of the results
OF the various melts of coins by the local
assay office, which. naturally has kept
careful record of all the coin that il has
melted down. The figures of recent assays
pl the treasury Offigl34S or CONS sent out
from the Philadelphia mint which were
communicated TO the New York bankers by
the Secretary of the Treasury, indicated
that the average fineneSs Of recent coinage
was about S99.935. which is but little short
of the legal fineness. 1t also appeared from
these figures that in many instances the
hneness was above the legal degree fixed
by law as ii was below it. This. however.
was a showing made on coins OF very re-
cent date. and 1t is admitted the fineness Of
these coins is greater than that OF coins
produced in earlier years. The MEETINGS
of the American gold coin at the New York
assay office amount in the aggregate 70 Il
number of millions of dollars, and there
fore form fair basis for the computation,
OF hneness- The records of that Office show
that me average of all such coin melted
since 1SJ2 has been 500 G25, which is consid-
erabiy below the legal degree of fncuess
as well as the average fneueSS of the coins
recently produced at the Philadelphia mint
IN some cases the assay office has found
that the nneucSS of American coins fell as
low as S993, or nearly to that figure To
some extent this record offers "A SatiSfac-
tory explanation of the low allowance made
by the Bank of France on the particular
shipment of coin that has served to raise
the question of the fiueneSs of our coins
1t is suggested that the Bank of France.
taking advantage of the fact that our coins
have on occasion aSSayed as low as 500 1 or
under. allowed that rate to be on the safe
side. and. incidentally, to get the coin at 4
valuation based on an estimate of fneness
which was probably below the actual fig
ureS.
If comparison be made with coins of other
countries, 1t is found that. SO far at least
as the experience of the New York assay
office goes, the American coin, although
falling considerably short of the absolute
fneness, is about as good as any other gold
coin current in Europe. and better by a
good deal than some of them. The average
fneness of German coins that have been
melted down at the assay office has proved
to be about S99626 the average fneneSs of
French coin about S09.4. while the Spanish
coins have frequently been found to be as
low as 500. In all these countries the legal
hnenesS is 800, so that these figures show
that there is considerable variation from
the nominal fineness of coins not only here,
but in Europe well. 1t is an interesting
fact-light recently thrown on Japanese af-
fairs in general makes it possible to say a
curious fact-that the japanese coins in the
matter of fineness superior to all
others. So far the records of the local as
say office show that out of every eight
meits of Japanese coins seven have come
fully up to the legal fineness of 900-10o0.
The average fineness of English coins which
have been melted at the New York assay
office has been about 916.5. as compared
with the English legal standard of 9l6.G2J.