Materials of Coins and Banknotes

Course number: B02

Supervised by: Mitsuru Hayama

Beyond the text: 10 exercises · 6 coins · 11 readings　How reading times are calculated

You will also understand

• You can give examples where the supply of a material governed the system.
• Can explain the range of material weights (from several hundred grams to one gram) with concrete examples.
• Can interpret the debasement of coinage material during wartime as an indicator of national power.

You can start this course without reading any other course.

Also worth reading, to see the connections (optional)

• Why can banknotes be used as money?
  What you learn: You can explain the difference between convertible and inconvertible notes by what happens at the window.

If you want to know more about checking sources (optional)

• Is It Really True? Checking History
  We re-examine the origins of money and famous anecdotes, comparing them with historical records and actual artifacts.

Assessment

10 exercises in this course (7 check, 0 compare, 3 written). Progress is recorded by self-assessment.

1. Comparing Gold, Silver, Copper, and Paper — Six PerspectivesThe six perspectives are clues for comparing materials. They are not conditions that must all be met for something to be money.
2. The luck of the ground was holding up the systemThe system is also influenced by the supply of the material. One interpretation is that the discovery of gold in the nineteenth century supported the gold standard. However, that alone is not a complete explanation.
3. Even with backing, paper diesEven with backing, paper dies if it cannot be redeemed fast enough.
4. Metal, Paper, Deposits — By Whose Promise Is It Paid?Cash is a liability of the central bank, and deposits are liabilities of commercial banks. The shift in material is also a shift in the issuer and the settlement mechanism.
5. Three Hundred Grams and One Gram — The Range of WeightsUnder the same name of "coinage," weights can differ three-hundredfold. The choice of weight reflects a society's answer.
6. War Seizes Materials — National Strength Felt at Your FingertipsSilver → Cupronickel → Aluminum → Tin and Zinc. The debasement of materials was a chronology of the war effort, which people felt at their fingertips.
7. The Electron as Material — The Day Texture VanishesFrom cash to electronic payments. As the material changes, so do the issuer and the settlement system. The ongoing story of Section 4.
8. Chosen for function — The modern philosophy of materialsModern materials are chosen for function, not value. The three-layer 500-yen coin is the modern expression of four hundred years of craftsmanship.

• Debt calls forth a revolution　France　1789–1790　A print shop, Paris
  §3. The scene where the assignat was born as a bond — not as paper money.
• The paper they printed too much of　France　1795–1803　The window of a money-changer, Paris
  §3. After paper died twice, the decision to return to metal.
• The bank of the world　Britain　1848–1886　From California to South Africa
  §2. The passage saying the premise of the gold standard rested on "the luck of the ground."
• Epilogue　Overview: the world　the end of the journey　The Journey of a Promise
  Section 4. What remains in a worn-out coin. Besides the material, what supports payment?
• The Roman Republic　Overview: the world　280–276 BC　Early Rome
  Section 5. A 300-gram piece of bronze. Physical evidence from an era when the value of the material itself was the currency.
• From the lifting of the gold embargo to war　Japan　1938–1944　across Japan
  Section 6. "The hands knew first." A fine passage on reading a nation's strength with your fingertips.
• China　Overview: the world　the present　Toward the First Nation to Abandon Paper Money
  Section 7. The country that invented banknotes is the first to abandon them—where things stand a thousand years after the Jiaozi.
• From reconstruction to the palm of the hand　Japan　2021　the Mint
  Section 8. Four hundred years folded into a three-layered cross-section. The culmination of modern material philosophy.
• Breaking Coinage　Greece　406/5 BC　Behind the mint
  This is an emergency coin with a bronze core covered in a thin layer of silver. Please observe what happens when a city's mark, which is supposed to guarantee the silver content, is stamped on something that is not silver.
• A memory called cowries　China　the 11th–8th centuries BC　A casting site in the Yellow River valley
  In a land where shells from the southern seas could not reach, bronze was used to copy their shape. Even when the material changed, the form alone remained, and from that point on, it was the shape that carried trust—this is a place where that reversal occurred.
• The republic and the escudo (2)　Portugal　1925　An inspection table in Lisbon
  Are banknotes printed by the same company using the same plates counterfeit? This case, where the object is genuine but the authority is false, directly answers the central question of this course.