The History of Currency, 1252 to 1896Shaw, William Arthur
History
The History of Currency, 1252 to 1896
Shaw, William Arthur
Money -- History
The result of the introduction of this standard was that in a few years
the raising of the Reichs thaler to 120 kreutzers prevailed all over the
empire. Sweden accepted it in the same year, 1690, and three years later
the three upper circles acquiesced. At the same time the gold gulden was
advanced to 2 florins 56 kreutzers. The previous ratio of 15 was thereby
advanced to 15.1 (15-128/1278).
In 1738 the Reichstag determined on the adoption of the Leipzig standard
for the whole empire; no alteration was made in the Reichs thaler, which
was still retained at 2 florins and minted at 12 to the mark fine; but a
graduated scale of agio was adopted for the divisional coins, which were
minted at an equivalence of from 12-3/8 to 13-2/3 thalers to the mark
fine. The difference (varying from 3/8 to 1-2/3 thalers) represented the
agio.
[Sidenote: GERMANY: THE CONVENTION STANDARD]
From the first, however, the Leipzig standard had no more real success
than any of its predecessors. Although theoretically accepted by all
North Germany, and adopted in the Reichstag in 1738, it could obtain no
actual general adoption through the empire. Even from the moment of the
inception of the system in 1690, the process of competitively raising
the course of the coinage had still continued, and pieces of 30, 20, 15,
and 10-kreutzers were struck on a basis of from 20 to 21-1/3 gulden to
the mark. The result was to put upon the _carolus_, which from 1730
onwards was minted in great quantities in South-West Germany, an agio of
10 per cent., a differentiation which was much increased by the
disorders of the war of the Austrian succession. Such an agio swiftly
drove the larger, full-valued specie out of currency, and during the
continuance of that war the currency of Austria and South Germany was
almost entirely reduced to depreciated fractional pieces, while the
exchangers reaped untold advantage. It was on the close of this war, in
1748, that, with characteristic Austrian selfishness, though also with a
boldness none of his predecessors had approached, the Emperor, Francis
I., determined on the erection of the 20-gulden standard as a separate
Austrian independent system, minting the mark of fine silver into 13-1/2
Reichs thalers, or 20 guldens. This latter system, after the accession
to it of Bavaria, obtained the name of the Convention Standard, and the
2-gulden pieces minted under it are styled the Species or Convention
Thaler. The convention system remained in force in Austria until the
Vienna Coinage Convention of 1857, a period during which the _Convention
Thaler_ found wide circulation through South Germany.
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