COINS AND NAMES.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 2561, 22 March 1877, Page 3

COINS AND NAMES.

The American dollar is derived from the German. " thaler " (literally "valleypiece," the first tbaltJrs having been coined in Goachitnsthal, in Bohemia, where there are extensive silver mines). The same name is also used in Sweden and Denmark, where theunitof currency is called a rixdale or royal dollar. As for the sign or abbreviation of §, authorities are*'divided as to its origion, but it is generally admitted that § was originally written .with the S on the U ; but for the Sake of "celerity it was considered to be p^pedienfc io change the- U to two strokes tfcrougli S, 'which has remained the accepted sign. -'r! he American mill, cent, and dime, the. French centime and decime, the Italian centesimo, the South American centaro, are terms derived from the Latiu, denoting the thousandth, the hundredth, and the lent part of the unit of currency. When the Italian cities were at the height of. their power in the middle of the sixteenth century, their coins

naturally spread over the world, and their narae9 were taken for the coins of majy other countries, thus the worldrenowned- Florentine florin (in Italian florino, so called.from the flower, the lily of Florence, being on the reverse of every coin) was adopted .by the French and English, who also give the same niune to the German coin gulden—derived from,, gold money. The Venetian sequin, in Italian zecchino—from " zocco," a mint—was adapted by most of the Oriental countries with which the VeneIjan merchants trafficked. The Milanese ducat was taken into fYauce and Naples when the armies of .these countries overran Milan. The Neapolitan carlino is a small coin, with the head of Charles on it. The Roman scudo.—in French — took <scu its name from the • shield originally placed on this coin. Another Italian coin which spread over i-urope was the i.oman gios^o, called in England a grote, in France a gros, in Bremen a : grote, and still. retained in Prussia or 1 Saxony as a little groat or groschen. The French sou is evidently derived from the Italian "soldo, or piece with which one can solde or pay one's debts. The Hanseatic Towns also furnished coins witness the mark, so called from the Government "mark," that it was of good weight* The schellirig of Hamburg was adopted in Fngland, where it is called a shilling, and also by Denmark and Sweden, where they call it a shelling Many coins derive their names from tiie marks or signs,, printed on (he reverse, and retain the name, although the sign may have been disused. Thus a coin which has a crown on the reverse was called an e*cu in French, a crown in English. A piece which had a cross on it is called a kreutzer in Germany (from the German word " kreutzer," a cross), although no sign of a cross can be discovered on the modern kreutzer. The English " pound " was originally a pound of money ; but it has been gradually reduced to its present form and called ft sovereign, "from the, sovereign's 'he^ad being on its face. In France, during the reign of Louis' XVI., there was a coin , called a livre, or pound, which the Repub- ! lie adopted as the unit of currency, changing the name of that to franc, which it still retains. When the kingdom of Itajly, and more recently the Papal States,' adopted the French system, they retained the old name of livre—in Italian, liva, and made that the unit of currency, so that the franc of France and the liva of Italy are of exactly the same value. The "-Napoleon " or " Louis'' ot the French is simply a conventional name given by the French to a twenty' franc piece ; in the same* manner as the Americans call a. ten dollar.piece an " eagle,"* and as the Prussians have a " Frederick." Tha English guinea derived its' name from the fact that the gold from which the first guineas were made came .from the Guinea Coast. The English farthing is so called from its being the fourth of a penny; the derivation of the Spanish, cwarto is the same, the cwarta being the quarter of' a real or royal piece. The names of the South American coins are mostly of Spanish or Portuguese origin \ the peso, or reru, is a piece that weighs from " pessar," to weigh ;" the cehtaro is the hundredth part of n unit of currency, and the rei ot' Brazil is' a royal piece. From the above mentioned' facts it will be seea.that the tendency _of all nations has been to adopt the coins of other nations ; witness the groat, which travelled from Italy to England, France and Germany. Sometimes the value was altered, for instance, there is a florin in Bavaria, worth forty American cents, divided into one hundred kreutzers. To give an idea of the difficulties a merchant doing business in Germany has to encounter, it must be remembered ttat there are five distinct coinages in use in that country, namely:—Prussia and Saxony who use thalers, worth seventyfive cents —divided into thirty groschen ; Hamburg, with marks of thirty cents, divided into sixteen shillings; Bremen, with,its groten, and Austria and Bavaria before mentioned. In Italy the same state of things existed nntil the establishment of the Italian Kingdom in 1860. Several years ago the French Government proposed to the States whose coinage was the same as hers—namely, to Belgium, Switzerland, and Italy—that the coins of one should pass without diminution of value in the territory of each of the others. This proposal was immediately accepted by these -countries, and by Eome some time after. It is this arrangement, called in Europe "La Convention Monetaire," which it is proposed to extend so as to make a universal currency.—New York Paper. ____^___