treaty

条約　—　Institutions

A written promise made between states.

8 Reales of Agustín I1822 Double Vereinsthaler (Southern Railway commemorative)1857 2 Vereinsthaler commemorative (1857, Southern Railway)1857

The standards for coinage can themselves be determined by treaty. In 1753, the court of Vienna and Bavaria fixed in the form of a treaty how many coins to strike from a Cologne mark, and the large silver coins of this standard were called Conventionsthalers.

Article 5 of the Treaty of Amity and Commerce between Japan and the United States in the fifth year of Ansei (1858) stipulated that foreign and Japanese coins of the same type should circulate at equal weight, which led to an outflow of gold. The indemnity of 231.5 million taels from the Treaty of Shimonoseki was received in London and became the specie reserve for the gold standard.

⚠ Alliances disappear, but standards spread beyond them and outlive them. The legacy of unification remains not in the text of the treaty, but in the standard of measurement itself.