Coin of an economic crisis: 1723 shilling

[Figleaf]

Scandals, bad financial institutions and funny financial instruments were not invented last year. Consider this coin. It looks like a regular British shilling and it is, except for the letters SS   C between the shields on the reverse. They stand for South Sea Company, best known for the South Sea bubble and for equity/debt trades but in its own time a major source for debate for its role in the slave trade (Asiento), mainly because Whigs were major shareholders and Tories could criticize them indirectly for causing a financial crisis.

Peter

[Figleaf]

Thanks, SCwTN. I should indeed have mentioned that. The South Sea Company brought so much silver for coining into the Tower Mint, that they negotiated the right to have their initials on the coins made of "their" silver. The Welsh Copper company (WCC) and the impossibly named "Company for Smelting down Lead with Pitcoale and Sea-cole" (roses and plumes) negotiated a similar deal.

Behind these deals was the (justified) fear of a "silver famine". In reality, silver famines (there were several such in world history) were periods in which the growth of world or local trade far outstripped the growth of the stock of silver, so that the price of silver in terms of goods went up, a phenomenon that would be called deflation today.

Silver famines were known to be bad for economic growth and trade. When a silver famine threatened, countries would do their best to attract more silver to their own mints (mercantilism). Offering a free ad on the coins was an innovative way to attract more silver to the Tower Mint.

Peter

[BC Numismatics]

  There is a very scarce variety of the 1723 SSC 1/-,which has the French Coat-of-Arms at the date.I bought one of these coins a few years ago for NZ$125.

Aidan.