Stephenson:Neal:Quicksilver:11:Gold knows... (Alan Sinder)

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The alchemical symbol for gold adorns the cover of Cryptonomicon.
C R Y P T O N O M I C O N
Alchemy's symbol for Gold

Authored links

Cryptic quotation

Enoch the Red gets escorted to the London Docks by the master of the London Mint. As Enoch is leaving, Isaac tells him:

Gold knows things no man does.

It seems old and genuine - and doesn't show up on Google. One must wonder if Silver forgets easier. One recalls 30 pieces of silver as payment is common in literature.

The Royal Mint

enhanced from various Wikipedia articles

The Royal Mint is the name of the body permitted to make (mint) coins in the United Kingdom. Their work and history is discussed below. The Royal Mint originated over one thousand years ago, but is now (since 1975) a Government Trading Fund, operating in much the same way as a government owned company, that not only mints coins for the United Kingdom, but also mints and exports coins to many other countries. It also produces military medals, commemorative medals and other such items for governments, schools and businesses. The mint is now on a single site in Llantrisant, South Wales.

Trial of the Pyx

The Trial of the Pyx is the procedure in the United Kingdom for ensuring that newly-minted British coinage conform to required standards. Trials have been held from the twelfth century to the present day, normally once per calendar year; the form of the ceremony has been essentially the same since 1282. They are trials in the full judicial sense, presided over by a judge with an expert jury of assayers. Trials are now held at the Hall of the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths; formerly, they took place at the Palace of Westminster. Given modern production methods, it is unlikely that coins would not conform, but this has been a problem in the past — it was tempting for the Master of the Mint to steal precious metals.

The term "Pyx" refers to the boxwood chest (in Greek, πυχις, pyxis) in which coins were placed for presentation to the jury. There is also a Pyx Chapel (or Pyx Chamber) in Westminster Abbey, which was once used for secure storage of the Pyx and related articles.

The judge having charge of the trial is the Queen's Remembrancer, the Senior Master of the Queen's Bench. It is his or her responsibility to ensure that the trial is held in accordance with law, and to deliver the final verdict to Her Majesty's Treasury. Where and when a trial is to take place is at the Treasury's discretion, though there must be a trial in any year during which the Royal Mint issues coins.

Coins to be tested are drawn from the regular production of the Royal Mint. The Deputy Master of the Mint must, throughout the year, randomly select several thousand sample coins and place them aside for the Trial. These must be in a certain fixed proportion to the number of coins produced. For example, for every 5000 bimetallic coins issued, one must be set aside, but for silver Maundy money the proportion is one in 150.

The jury is composed of at least six assayers from the Company of Goldsmiths. They have two months to test the provided coins, and decide whether they have been properly minted. Criteria are given for diameter, chemical composition, and weight, for each class of coinage.

Statutory basis for the Trial of the Pyx is given by the Coinage Act 1971, the latest in a long series of similarly-named Acts of Parliament. Specific procedures are established by Order-in-Council, the most recent being the Trial of the Pyx Order 1998. It is not required for a new Order to be issued for each Trial: this only happens when the rules change.

Wikipedia: Halsbury's Laws of England

Halsbury's Laws of England is a definitive encyclopedic treatise on the laws of England. It includes restatements of the common law with remarks to the relevant judicial authority and the statutory law which has in many cases codified, modified or supplemented common law.

Halsbury's Laws of England covers every proposition of English law (whether statutory or common law), and is divided into alphabetically arranged titles, making it convenient to use and enabling quick and easy research into any area of law.

Wikipedia: Coinage

A coin is a piece of hard material, traditionally metal and usually in the shape of a disc, which is used as a form of money. With banknotes, coins make up the cash forms of all modern money systems. Coins are used for lower valued units, notes for the higher values.

The Value of a Coin

The market exchange value of a coin comes from its historic value, and/or the intrinsic value of the component metal (for example gold or silver). However, in modern times most coins are made of a base metal and their value comes strictly from their status as fiat money. This means that that the value of the coin is decreed by government fiat rather than agreed by the people, which really makes it less a coin and more a token in the strict sense.

To distinguish between these two types of coins, as well as from other forms of tokens which have been used as money, monetary scholars have defined there to be three criteria which must be met for an object to be a "true coin". These criteria are:

It must be made of a valuable material, and trade for close to the market value of that material.
It must be of a standardized weight and purity.
It must be marked to identify the authority that guarantees the content.

By the above definition, the invention and first known usage of coins comes from the Kingdom of Lydia circa 643-630 BCE. Under three generations of Lydian kings, the money of Lydia gradually moved from being lumps of electrum (a naturally-occurring mixture of silver and gold) to coins of a guaranteed weight and purity, marked with the seal of the King. True coins also developed very close to this timeframe in both India and China. The History of Coins is a long and interesting one.

Coin Debasement

Throughout history governments have been known to create more coinage than their supply of precious metals would allow. By replacing some fraction of a coin's precious metal content with a base metal, a government reduces the value of the coins (thereby "debasing" their money) and would then produce more coins then they could otherwise. Debasement of money almost always leads to price inflation unless price controls are also instituted by the governing authority. Some consider a classic example of this phenomenon to be the behavior of price levels in the United States since 1964 (the last year United States Coins were minted of silver).

Features of Modern Coinage

The milled edges still found on many coins were originally designed to show that none of the valuable metal had been shaved off the coin. Prior to the use of milled edged coins, circulating currency suffered from "shaving", a common problem where members of the public would cut the edges off circulating coins made of precious metals. Circulating unmilled british sterling silver coins were known to be shaved to almost half of their minted weight. This form of debasement in Tudor England lead to the formulation of Gresham's Law. The monarch would have to periodically recall, paying only bullion value of the silver, and re-mint circulating coins.
Modern 1c Euro coin

The front side of a coin, traditionally carrying a picture of the head of a monarch or other authority, is called the obverse, or colloquially heads. The back side is called the reverse, or colloquially tails.

Coins are popularly used as a sort of two-sided die; in order to choose between two options with a random possibility, one choice will be labelled "heads" and the other "tails," and a coin will be flipped or "tossed" to see whether the heads or tails side comes up on top. See Bernoulli trial; a fair coin is defined to have the probability of heads (in the parlance of Bernoulli trials, a "success") exactly 0.5. Some coins have two heads and thus have probability one of success.

Coins are sometimes falsified to make one side weigh more.

Some coins are so thin they can only be struck on one side, they are called bracteates.

History of the Royal Mint

The Royal Mint first became a single institution around 1660s, when minting operations were centralised in the Tower of London under the reign of Charles II.

Isaac Newton, who took up his post in 1696 is the best known Master of the Royal Mint. He unofficially moved Sterling to the gold standard from silver in 1717.

Pound Sterling

The basic currency unit of Sterling is now the pound - hence Pound Sterling, which strictly speaking refers to the currency unit rather than the currency. The Standard ISO 4217 currency code is GBP. UKP is a non-standard abbreviation.

Sign: £ (or "L"; both from Latin libra = pound). £ 1 = 100 pence (p) (singular penny). Pre-1971 £ 1 = 20 shillings (s.; colloquially "bob"), 1 shilling = 12 pence (d.); hence "Lsd" as shorthand for predecimalisation values. Note that the pre-and-post decimalisation penny had different values (the pound was constant), so the latter were known as "new pence" for their first few years.

In modern times the pound has become the basic unit of currency. Inflation has steadily eroded the value of currency. The basic unit was once the penny. Originally a silver penny of 1.555 grams (1/240 pound troy) had the purchasing power of slightly less than a modern "pound".

In the UK, to distinguish the currency from the weight, and from other currencies, a pound is often referred to as a pound sterling or sometimes just sterling. The sterling was originally an old English silver coin made of sterling silver and weighing 1.555 grams (1/240th of a troy pound).

History of Pound Sterling

As a unit of currency, the term pound originates from the value of a Troy pound weight of high purity silver known as sterling silver.

Sterling (with a basic currency unit of the Tealby Penny, rather than the pound) was introduced as the English currency by King Henry II in 1158, though the name Sterling wasn't acquired until later.

The gold standard

Sterling unofficially moved to the gold standard from silver in 1717 thanks to Sir Isaac Newton, who was Master of the Royal Mint, and the use of silver declined until the official adoption of the gold standard following the end of the Napoleonic Wars, in 1821. This lasted until Britain, in common with many other countries, abandoned the standard during World War I, in 1919. During this period, the pound was generally valued at around 4.9 US dollars.
Isaac Newton as Coinage?
Suspect they're tests for medalions

Prior to World War I, the UK had one of the World's strongest economies, holding 40% of the World's overseas investments. However, by the end of the war the country owed 850 million pounds, mostly to the USA, with interest costing the country some 40% of all government spending.

In an attempt to resume stability, a variation on the gold standard was re-introduced in 1926, under which the currency was pegged to the gold price at pre-war levels, although people were only able to exchange their currency for gold bullion, rather than for coins. This was abandoned on September 21, 1931, during the Great Depression, and Sterling devalued 20%.

In common with all other world currencies, there is no longer any link to precious metals. The US dollar was the last to leave gold, in 1971. The pound was made fully convertible in 1946 as a condition for receiving a US loan of 3.75 billion US dollars in the aftermath of World War II.

Following the US dollar

Since leaving gold, there have been several attempts to peg the value of the pound to other currencies, initially the US dollar.

Under continuing economic pressure, and despite months of denials that it would do so, on September 19, 1949 the pound was devalued by 30%, from 4.03 dollars to 2.80 dollars. The move prompted several other governments to devalue against the dollar too, including Australia, Denmark, Eire, Egypt, India, Israel, New Zealand Norway and South Africa.

In the mid 1960s the pound came under renewed pressure since the exchange rate against the dollar was considered too high. In the summer of 1966, with the value of the pound falling in the currency markets, exchange controls were tightened by the Wilson government. Among the measures, tourists were banned from from taking more than 50 pounds out of the country, until the restriction was lifted in 1970. The pound was eventually devalued by 14.3% to 2.41 dollars in November 1967.

A worse crisis followed in 1976, when it was apparently leaked that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) thought that the pound should be set at 1.50 dollars, and as a result the pound fell to 1.57 dollars, and the government decided it had to borrow 2.3 billion pounds from the IMF. At its lowest, the pound stood at just 1.05 dollars in February 1985.

Following the German Mark

In 1988, the Thatcher government decided that the pound should 'shadow' the German Deutsche Mark, with the unintended result of a rapid rise in inflation as the economy boomed due to inappropriately low interest rates.

Following the European Currency Unit

In another change of tack, in 1990 the Thatcher government decided to join the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM), with the pound set at about DM 2.90. However the country was forced to withdraw from the system on Black Wednesday (September 16, 1992). Black Wednesday saw interest rates from 10% to 12%, and then to 15% in a futile attempt to stop the pound falling below the ERM limits, costing the country tens of billions of pounds as the exchange rate moved to DM 2.20.

The Euro

As a member of the European Union, the UK has the option of adopting the euro as its currency. However the subject remains politically controversial, not least since the UK was forced to withdraw from its precursor, the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (see above).

On the value of British money

In 1999 the House of Commons Library published a research paper (PDF document) which included an index of the value of the Pound for each year between 1750 and 1998, where the value in 1974 was indexed at 100.

Reading this document, one is struck by the fact that the value of the Pound remained remarkably constant for the whole of the period until the First World War, allowing for inflationary fluctuations in wartime and with many periods when prices declined. The value of the index in 1750 was 5.0, increasing to a peak of 16.0 in 1813 before declining very soon after the end of the Napoleonic Wars to around 10.0 and remaining in the range 8.5 - 10.0 at the end of the nineteenth century. The index was 9.6 in 1914 and peaked at 24.8 in 1920, before declining again to 15.5 in 1933 and 1934 i.e. prices were only about three times higher than they had been 180 years earlier.

Inflation really kicked off during and after the Second World War - the index was 20.0 in 1940, 32.9 in 1950, 46.4 in 1960, 68.2 in 1970, 243.0 in 1980, 458.5 in 1990, and 592.3 in 1998.

Numismatic Glossary

Metal: A material coins (and a few other things) are made of. Originally, coinage was made as a form of transportable wealth. Metal was desirable as currency because of its durability as compared to other types of valuables. The value of coins was directly tied to the metallic content, or at least the perceived metallic content. The first coins were made in Lydia, a Greek area of what is now Turkey, in the 7th Century BC. These coins were made of Electrum, a naturally occurring alloy of gold and silver, and were often little more than stamped nuggets. Electrum, which resembles silver with a slight yellow tint, was also used for some Byzantine coinage about a thousand years ago.

Some of the other common metals and alloys that have been used to make coins are:

Gold: Distinct because of its unusual color, gold has been prized for centuries. Too soft for heavy manufacturing usage, gold was ideal as a form of transportable wealth. In ancient times, gold was virtually always refined to a nearly pure state, roughly .986 fine. 18th and 19th century US gold was roughly .900 fine, on a par with most other gold coins of the time. Today, gold is no longer used for circulating coinage, but many countries produce commemorative gold coinage and gold coins for use as bullion. The most popular bullion coins today worldwide are those minted on .999 fine (or even finer) planchets, and the United States whose American Eagle series of gold coinage is .917 fine, will be producing a new series of coins for this market beginning in 2006.
Silver: Also used for coinage for centuries because of its status as a precious metal. While gold has been in use for coinage longer than silver, the intrinsic value of gold coins was often so high that most ordinary people never saw one. Silver was therefore historically a means of distributing wealth among the general population, and there were long periods of time in Medieval Europe when coins were made of virtually nothing else. The fineness of silver coins varied greatly depending on both the issuer and the time, with the finest circulating silver coinage generally somewhere around .917 fine, or Sterling Silver. US Silver coinage before 1964 was generally .900 fine. Beginning around the middle of the 19th century, silver started to gradually disappear from the world's circulating coinage in favor of metals that had a similar color and weight, and since about 1970 it has been very unusual to find any circulating silver coinage. Today, silver is used for commemoratives and bullion. Very low grade silver alloys are known as Billon.
Copper: Commonly used for a wide variety of purposes since prehistory, copper has used for coinage since at least the fifth century BC. Because copper is very common and not intrinsically valuable, it has historically tended to be used for low denomination coins. An exception to this is Swedish Plate Money, large denomination pieces made in the 17th and 18th centuries because Sweden had no silver and immense supplies of copper. Unfortunately, the pieces, denominated between 1/2 and 10 Dalers, were so impractical because of their huge size that most eventually found use as ballast rather than as money. Common alloys of copper include Bronze (copper alloyed with tin) and Brass (copper alloyed with zinc). US "copper" cents made 1864-1982 are technically one of these two, depending on whether zinc was included in the composition for the planchet. Tombac is a kind of brass used for Canadian five cent pieces during World War II. Orichalcum is a light-colored brass alloy used by the Romans for the dupondius and sestertius.
Nickel: A very hard white-colored metal, commonly used as a replacement for white silver coinage. Nickel has been used for coinage since the mid-19th Century, often in alloys containing copper (Copper-Nickel) such as the 75% copper/25% nickel alloy used on US five cent pieces since 1866. Nickel in its pure form is magnetic, although the US five cent piece is not. Today's gold-colored British One Pound coin is made of a Nickel-Brass alloy containing 5.5% nickel, 24.5% zinc, and 70% copper. German Silver or Nickel Silver is an alloy of copper, nickel, and zinc, more silvery in color than ordinary copper-nickel. Philippines 5 Centavo pieces are a good example of this material.
Aluminum: A silvery, very light metal used by countries around the world for low denomination coinage. Extracted from bauxite ore, it has been known as a metal for less than 200 years, and was once considered very precious. Unpopular because of its low weight, it nevertheless is quite durable and resists corrosion well. Also called Aluminium. Aluminum-Bronze is an alloy of aluminum and copper popular for coinage, gold-colored, and much heavier than aluminum.
Zinc: Used mainly as an alloy in brass, zinc is occasionally used in its own right as a coinage metal. Zinc is dark gray, almost black, and it can be very difficult to make out the features on zinc coinage. Corrodes fairly easily. 1943 US Cents are plated in zinc, while zinc is the core of US Cents made since 1982 and Canadian Cents made since 1997.
Tin: Experimented with as a coinage metal in 17th century England, tin proved so subject to corrosion that the experiment was abandoned. Not used for coinage today.
Iron: Occasionally used for coinage in early 20th century Europe. Magnetic, but corrosive.
Steel: Often used for coinage, usually plated with another metal because of its corrosive properties. US Steel Cents are zinc-plated; many other low-denomination coins contain a copper, nickel, or even chromium plating about a steel core. Steel is quite magnetic, hence the magnet test used for "copper" 1943 cents.
Platinum: A precious metal, grey in color, occasionally used by Russia for 19th century circulating coinage, and commonly used today in the production of bullion coins.
Palladium: A silver precious metal, chemically similar to platinum and nickel and currently worth about half the value of gold, which is gaining some popularity in use as bullion. Palladium coins were first issued by Tonga in 1967 to commemorate the coronation of King Taufa'ahau Tupou IV.