[Ansteorra] coinage

[Jay Yeates]

-----Original Message-----
From: ansteorra-bounces+jyeates=realtime.net at ansteorra.org
[mailto:ansteorra-bounces+jyeates=realtime.net at ansteorra.org] On Behalf Of
Jay Rudin
Sent: 2004 - November 16 - Tuesday 12:08
To: Kingdom of Ansteorra - SCA, Inc.
Subject: Re: [Ansteorra] coinage 

Jay Yeates (are you the Jay Yeates I met at Rice?) wrote:

> have always been intrigued by coinage .... and interest was rekindled 
> recently by reading Neal Stephenson's "Baroque Trilogy" (highly
recommended)
> and stumbling on a modern, real silver coin for first time in *many* 
> years in my day-change.  have enough investment bullion (silver, gold, 
> and
> platinum) gathered over 20 years that would make a excellent "seed" on 
> a private mint focused on "craft coinage" .... and would be a 
> interesting
way
> to spin my jewelry / metalworking interest off in a  interesting new
vector

SCA coinage came up at the BoD meeting in the Steppes.  It turns out that
counterfeiting laws are broad, and we'd be taking on serious risk.  Coins
can be traded for prizes, like at pinball palaces, but if they can be
exchanged for money, then they are illegal under the counterfeit laws.

The BoD is looking into it and writing a policy.

Robin of Gilwell / Jay Rudin


...
when i stumbled onto the new "liberty dollar" ($10 solver piece) i had same
questions so went to their website (norfed.org) and drilled down to this
link:

http://www.libertydollar.org/html/legal.asp

granted the site is a bit heavy on "constitutional rights" and sometimes
difficult to wade through, there's some interesting stuff here (including
some very interesting medieval origins of some issues ...) 

overall, looks like as long as you do not claim it is official US currency,
it does not mimic US currency, you do not claim it is backed by US
government, and the exchange of your coins is a mutual agreement between
bearer and accepter, it's simply a private person-person exchange of metal /
metal-backed certificates for goods/services (which is exactly how common
coinage developed in europe).  

i think the biggest SCA issue was past instances where someone was demanding
that their coinage be accepted as legal-tender currency and that they had
some divine monopoly on that coinage / currency, which would be close if not
illegal.

to totally CYA, if you charter your operation as "novelty", "investment"
coinage, you are totally covered.
what i didn't realize is that there are 40 localized "currencies" already in
existence around the country 
as long as the value of the metals rises, i doubt you would have too many
people refusing to accept solid coin over promissory notes ....

any road, the BOD decisions are irrelevant .... my interest was exploring
how's of doing it (minting coins) outside the scadian world among the other
fringe cultures (g).  figured if there was any extant knowledge of matters /
process, looking inside scadia might be a good start.

been off the ren-faire scene for a while .. anyone know if there are any
coiners showing at TRF or Scarborough these days ???? 

'wolf
.. yep, Rice '75-'81