The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1908-10-11
HISTORY OF GOLDEN GUINEA
A Coin That Few EVer See-Last
Was Minted in 1913.

With poets license Tennyson tells US
how the jingling of the guinea helps the
the poet ever heard a guinea jingle. and
certainly few of the readers of Locks
ley Hail. have ever set eyes on that CON-
saws the London Globe. And yet-sucn
is the force of habit-we talk about gum
cas- and reckon in guineas. and read about
the jingling of guineas without ever ask
ing ourselves why a coin which is no
longer a coin persists in lingual currency
not only poetic, but popular.
The last guinea issued from the mint
bears date 1873: greats and maundleS were
cOpied in the era of Victoria; why. then,
has mankind. including the poets. 1orSot-
ten all about the latter and chung to the
fOrmer2 There seems no obvious reason
II NAV be because the guinea mao SO
long a reign. or because the word ltseit
ic .catchy." or because sellers have found
reader customers for goods at ohS
guinea" than for goods at "one pound
II was in the reign of Charles Ito
he exact. in the year 1663-that the flrSt
golden guinea was brought into the world
II was part of a new coinage hlaue III d
new way. for ii was milled' a deVlce 70
nrevent clipping. which, indeed had peeh
introduced in E~liZabeth's time, nut soon
abandoned. There were 1lNe SuLAed; wv
guinea. guinea and half guinea pieces,
80 thew were so named because many
Of them were made from gold orouShi
g., Guinea bv the Company of Royal
A6venturers of England Trading IN Al
RIGA" mnarv,c
arp1e the king ordered that the pieces
ebould wear the image of "a niue WHITE
eleDhant which Wee Intend as d MARI
of distinction from the rest OF our soio
and silver monies. and an lncourase
untO the said company IN the lmporLinS
~ eoId and silver to be coined. On
some of the coins. too. there is a castle,
and the reason for this may be tnat III
I66S Sir Robert Holmes captured III oCigIl
ing bav 100 Dutch sail containing pulhon
and gold dust from Cape Coast castle, III
Guinea. and that this booty found us
way into the mint. The exploit Is cele-
brated in Dryden's "Annus Mlranlils-
II is curious, in the light OF the mel
dant that the guineas We're cut by a
Dutchman named John Roettler: VINO
competed for the work with an EhSlIsn-
man. Thomas Simon. ana peal MN Wiz
a foreigner again, the t~renchnldh DIOn'
deau- had charge of the milling apparatus;
simon was disguised at his defeat, ana
to show that he was really the oetlei
man made and presented to the KING Wnal
came to be known as Lhe FeIltioI
Crown The king, however lsnoIeu ~ ~.
anneaI. The new coinage. apparently
caused no little stir. for the Immortal
diarists of that day both mention It 9,
Nov II was wrote Evelyn on March
Q 1864. that the fine new mllled com
10Th Of white money and guineas, was
eStabIIshed" and Pepys tells how there
Gined with us today March 9, l665) MT
Slingsby, of the mint. who showed US al
the new pieces. both of gold and SILVER
tbat we've made for the king. by Blon-
deau's way; and compared e them 6Ie1nre wit q
~ Liter made by Symons (Simon). ano
Of the king by one Rotyr (Rottier). q
German. think, that dined with US als So
The guinea. moreover, or rather the ele'
.ban+ I,non the reverse side to that which
bore the bust of Charles II. receives no
tice in Marvell's prose. where ne SPEAKS
Of a great little animal" which was OF
a sudden turned so yellow and grown
withal so unwieldy that he might have
nassed current for the elephant upon :
ggrinnv." and popular combinations of the
word quickly arose, such as guinea
dropped." a cheat who had practiced the
TRICK of dropping countefeit coins, ant
"ouinea hem or coutesan. Our fore
fathers had much trouble with the coin
age. Sometimes they could NOT eet meta
enough to coin; sometimes the market
yalue of the metal used for coming was
such that men found it profitable to mel