The Kings Coins.

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume III, Issue 141, 14 December 1901, Page 4

The Kings Coins.

Prominent among the innovations connected with the forthcoming coron i. tio j must be placed the issue of ther new King Edward coins. " Giant labours," sayß a London paper, "lie befoie the Mint officiate in the New Year. Aftei acertain date the issue of Victoria coina will cease, and the issue of King Edward's coins will begin." Needless to say, there will be a tremendous rush for the new coin". Everyone will want them, but :fr is impossible to form any estimate of the demand. The fact that many people will want to keep as many King's coins as possible will add greatly to the difficulties of the Mint offiuials, for the

comparative scarcity caused by suchhoarding will necessitate a larger output to meet the currency requirements of the people. And that, of course, is a ciicumstance from which the officialsderive little comfort. " Have you any idea," the chief clerk was asked, ** when the new issue will take place ?" " Asearly as possible in the New Year," was the reply and he added. *' You will not expect a more definite statement than that. Before being issued, the new coinage will be heralded by Royal Proclamation." This, it should be explained, is the necessary initial step. The Proclamation will descrile minutely every coin, in sentences Buch as, "theCrown will be surrounded by a collar, with the Garter, and above will be th 0 inscription, etc*" The printing of the Proclamation, it appears, is enjoined by law in the case of every Hew ,issue of coinage. Most of the Victorian dies will be destroyed after tbe new coins areissued, but soma will be preserved in the museum connected with the Mint. The Dajly Mews points out that the coining: ofmoney has always been a prerogative of the Crown since the days of AtheU'an, and has been hedged round with terrible 1 penalty. " Something lingering with* boiling oil in it," as Ko-Ko says in " The Mikado," was the punishment in the days of the Normans for false coiners, land the penalty of death lasted in the nineteenth century. At present, accord* ing to the Daily News the Mint nukes a profit of nearly half a million out of the silver and bronze coins which bear its stamp.