HOW COINS WEAR.

Shannon News, 23 November 1923, Page 3

HOW COINS WEAR.

LOSS DURING CIRCULATION.

There is a great deal of loss from wear in the silver coins in circulation. Half-crowns, florins, shillings, and ’sixpences decrease in value annuually at least £II,OOO. A wonderful electrical instrument known as the induction balance shows

that a coin actually loses a fraction of weight when a finger is passed over it. But it is when coins rub against each other in people's pockets and purses, drop on a counter or on to the ground and so on, that they really wear. If you “ring” a coin to test its genuineness, you remove some of the metal of which it is composed. The smaller the value of the coin, the greater the wear, as it is .in use more constantly. Experiments show that in 100 years £IOO worth of half-crowns would lose £l3 11/8 of their value. The same sum in shillings would decrease in value by £36 14/1, whereas sixpences to the value of £IOO would be worth less than half what they were originally, losing metal to the value of £SO 18/8. Nowadays when coins become very much worn they are withdrawn from circulation.