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Published at 11th Apr 2018
Modified at 11th Apr 2018
Gold Standards Exceptance dates Per Countries
-
Dates of adopti on of a gold standard
1695: United Kingdom at £1 to 113 grains (7.32g) of gold.
1818: Netherlands at 1 guilder to 0.60561g gold
1854: Portugal at 1000 réis to 1.62585g gold
1871: Germany at 2790 Goldmarks to 1kg gold
1873: Latin Monetary Union (Belgium, Italy, Switzerland, France) at 31 francs to 9g gold
1873: United States de facto at 20.67 dollars to 1troy oz
1875: Scandinavian monetary union: (Denmark, Norway and Sweden) at 2480 krone to 1kg gold
1876: France internally
1876: Spain at 31 pesetas to 9g gold
1878: Finland at 31 marks to 9g gold
1879: Austria (see Austrian florin and Austrian crown)
1893: Russia at 31 roubles to 24g gold
1897: Japan at 1 yen to 1.5g gold
1898: India (see Indian rupee)
1900: United States de jure.
Gold has been used to make coins since the invention of coinage.
Gold coins were considered to be the Life blood of Mediterranean trade way back in the 2nd millennium BC.
These lands between Euphrates and Tigris are now known as Egypt and these coins were crude shapes and often chunks of gold different purities.
In 6th centenary BC Lydia ,now Western Turkey minted first controlled weighed gold coins .
Greek and Roman empires followed minting gold coins with emperors head stamped on one side.
Alexander the Great conquered Persia and took over 700,000 troy ounces of gold back to Greece.
Rome minted hundreds of million of gold coins on a massive scale as these gold coins were spread over the entire Roman Empire including Britain
Europe also produced popular gold trading coins
The Austrian gold ducat was a large coin 40 mm diameter.
France produced the famous rooster gold coin
Russia minted millions of 5 n 10 Russian Roubles gold coins
Britain produced million of Gold uk sovereigns and half sovereigns
USA minted the famous Indian head and Eagle gold coins but in the Depression of 1933 the USA re called all its gold coins and made it illegal to own gold coins.
Today Australia is one of the world major producer of gold and Gold coins are minted at Perth Mint and royal Australian mint
Popular gold coins are.
The Australian Nugget,Australian sovereign
Boxing kangaroo and perth mint gold coins
Lunar gold coins including year of the tiger and Australia’s mascot the Koala gold coin.
Gold coins are mostly one ounce, half ounce,1/10 ,1/20 ,1/25 and even smallest sizes of 0.5 grams
Today It is important to understand Fineness of gold coins-
Other metals are mixed with gold to make the coin more durable as pure gold is soft and coins are sometimes harshly treated and normal wear and tear has to be kept to a minimum.
Karat weight is a recognized unit of fineness gold equal to 1/24 part of pure gold.
Pure gold smelted is 1000 fine.
Correlation between karats and fineness
24 karats = 1000 fine
23 karats = 958.3 fine
22 karats = 916.6 fine
21 karats = 875.0 fine
20 karats = 833.3 fine
18 karats = 750.0 fine
16 karats = 666.7 fine
14 karats = 583.3 fine
10 karats = 416.6 fine
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