Good Money: Birmingham Buton Makers, The Royal Mint, and the Beginnings of Modern Coinage 1775-1821

by George Selgin

Good Money tells the fascinating story of British manufacturers' challenge to the Crown's monopoly on coinage. In the 1780s, when the Industrial Revolution was gathering momentum, the Royal Mint failed to produce enough small-denomination coinage for factory owners to pay their workers. As the currency shortage threatened to derail industrial progress, manufacturers began to mint custom-made coins, called "tradesman's tokens." Rapidly gaining wide acceptance, these tokens served as the nation's most popular currency for wages and retail sales until 1821, when the Crown outlawed all moneys except its own.

Economist George Selgin presents a lively tale of enterprising manufacturers, technological innovations, alternative currencies, and struggles over the right to coin legal money.

George Selgin is Professor of Economics in the Terry College of Business at the University of Georgia and Research Fellow at the Independent Institute in Oakland, California (www.independent.org).

Genres: Economics, History, Finance

390 pages, Hardcover

First published July 14, 2008

Reviews

[Tris · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you go on eBay and do a search for "Conder Tokens," you'll get an idea of what this book is all about. Part British history, part fuck-the-government, part thinking outside of the box. The industrial revolution and the cost of fighting two wars (the French and American Revolutions) left a serious shortage of small-demonination coins at a time when the monarchy wouldn't hear of having its faces stamped in anything other than gold and silver. Bartering was no longer going to work for the majority of city-dwellers. The result were independently made copper coins that represent a huge variety of political and commercial interests of the late 1700s, until the government stepped in an made them illegal. A really interesting story, well told.

[Frank Stein · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is an original addition to monetary history, and will probably change the way you look at change. It focuses on two periods in English history, 1787 to 1797 and 1811 to 1817, both times when the cost of wars and the inefficiencies of the Royal Mint led to a stark shortage of small, copper coins. The results were more dire than you might imagine.

Workmen who often made no more than a few shilling a week could not be paid with the silver and gold coins of a pound or over, so sometimes they were paid as teams, "group pay," who then had to take their coins to a pub and either receive stark discounts for change or debate their purchases so they equaled the right amount. Some employers had to pay their workers in their wares (say lumber from a mill) and they then had to go out and sell it themselves; others started company stores or "Tommy Stores" with their own "Tommy Notes," not to overcharge their workers, but to save them to trouble of exchanging in coin. Without small change workhouses couldn't collect the "poor rate" taxes from locals, and then couldn't pay out coins to those receiving "out relief," causing real distress among the unemployed. For many workers counterfeit coppers became the only substitute currency, but the payment of these by employers sometimes caused them to riot. This is what the authors Sargent and Velde have correctly called "The Big Problem of Small Change."

Yet Selgin shows that, counter to what Sargent and Velde argued, the problem wasn't solved by the Royal Mint monopolizing the coinage, but by commercial coiners rushing to fill the gap. Matthew Boulton, of Boulton and Watt fame, and his Soho Manufactutory created the first steam driven coining presses in the country (although Selgin disputes how essential these were) to make new token coins, while his erstwhile partner, the Copper King of Wales, Thomas Williams, created some of the finest engraved coins in British history. When the Chancellor of the Exchequer Nicholas Vansittart succeeded in having parliament ban all commercial coins in 1817, immense havoc was reeked in small trade across the country, until, only two years later, he brought Boulton's presses and many Birmingham engravers and die-makers to the Royal Mint, which could finally produce enough coin for the whole country.

I loved the details here: of the fights over minted farthings versus halfpennies, or guineas versus crowns, of "hubbed" dies or "grained" versus "incused" edges, but sometimes the detail and provence behind particular coins seemed to be of more interest to numismatists or coin collectors rather than the general reader, and it could get pretty heavy going. Still, the story is fascinating and worthwhile, and demonstrates the importance of monetary policy for economic growth and well-being.

[Eric Harris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating. Many improbable and counterintuitive things happened, when the private sector gave up on waiting for the government to do its job right -- and did it for themselves.

[Nita]

http://www.marginalrevolution.com/mar...

[Aaron Haspel]

Couldn't finish it, despite the best intentions and a serious layman's interest in money manipulation. Probably best left to specialists.