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Debased Silver
A debasement of coinage is the practice of lowering the intrinsic value of coins, especially when used in connection with commodity money, such as gold or silver coins, while continuing to circulate it at face value. A coin is said to be debased if the quantity of gold, silver, copper or nickel in the coin is reduced. Examples Roman Empire In Roman currency, the value of the denarius was gradually decreased over time as the Roman government altered both the size and the silver content of the coin. Originally, the silver used was nearly pure, weighing about 4.5 grams. From time to time, this was reduced. During the Julio-Claudian dynasty, the denarius contained approximately 4 grams of silver, and then was reduced to 3.8 grams under Nero. The denarius continued to shrink in size and purity, until by the second half of the third century, it was only about 2% silver, and was replaced by the Argenteus. Ottoman Empire Weight of akçe in grams of silver and index. Effects ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fineness Of Early Roman Imperial Silver Coins
The fineness of a precious metal object (coin, bar, jewelry, etc.) represents the weight of ''fine metal'' therein, in proportion to the total weight which includes alloying base metals and any impurities. Alloy metals are added to increase hardness and durability of coins and jewelry, alter colors, decrease the cost per weight, or avoid the cost of high-purity refinement. For example, copper is added to the precious metal silver to make a more durable alloy for use in coins, housewares and jewelry. Coin silver, which was used for making silver coins in the past, contains 90% silver and 10% copper, by mass. Sterling silver contains 92.5% silver and 7.5% of other metals, usually copper, by mass. Various ways of expressing fineness have been used and two remain in common use: ''millesimal fineness'' expressed in units of parts per 1,000 and '' karats'' or ''carats'' used only for gold. Karats measure the parts per 24, so that 18 karat = = 75% gold and 24 karat gold is considere ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gresham's Law
In economics, Gresham's law is a monetary principle stating that "bad money drives out good". For example, if there are two forms of commodity money in circulation, which are accepted by law as having similar face value, the more valuable commodity will gradually disappear from circulation. The law was named in 1857 by economist Henry Dunning Macleod after Sir Thomas Gresham (1519–1579), an English financier during the Tudor dynasty. Gresham had urged Queen Elizabeth to restore confidence in then- debased English currency. The concept was thoroughly defined in Renaissance Europe by Nicolaus Copernicus and known centuries earlier in classical Antiquity, the Near East, and China. "Good money" and "bad money" Under Gresham's law, "good money" is money that shows little difference between its nominal value (the face value of the coin) and its commodity value (the value of the metal of which it is made, often precious metals, such as gold or silver). The price spread betwe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ganj-i-Sawai
The ''Ganj-i-Sawai'' ( Persian/ Hindustani:''Ganj-i-Sawai'', in English "Exceeding Treasure", often anglicized as ''Gunsway'') was an armed Ghanjah dhow (trading ship) belonging to the Mughals. During Aurangzeb's reign, it was captured on 7 September 1695 by the English pirate Henry Avery en route from present-day Mocha, Yemen to Surat, India. It was built on the order of Empress Mariam-uz-Zamani, great grandmother of Aurengzeb, after the capture of her ship named '' Rahimi''. Capture by pirates In August 1695, Henry Every, captaining the 46-gun, 5th rate frigate ''Fancy'', reached the Mandab Strait, where he teamed up with five other pirate ships, including Thomas Tew's 8-gun, 46-man sloop-of-war ''Amity'', Richard Want in ''Dolphin'', Joseph Faro in ''Portsmouth Adventure'', Thomas Wake in ''Susannah'', and William Maze in ''Pearl''. Although a Mughal convoy of 25 ships bound for India had eluded the pirate fleet during the night, the following day they en ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Henry Every
Henry Every, also known as Henry Avery (20 August 1659Disappeared: June 1696), sometimes erroneously given as Jack Avery or John Avery, was an English pirate who operated in the Atlantic and Indian oceans in the mid-1690s. He probably used several aliases throughout his career, including Benjamin Bridgeman, and was known as Long Ben to his crewmen and associates. Dubbed The Arch Pirate and The King of Pirates by contemporaries, Every was infamous for being one of the very few major pirate captains to escape with his loot without being arrested or killed in battle, and for being the perpetrator of what has been called the most profitable act of piracy in history. Although Every's career as a pirate lasted only two years, his exploits captured the public's imagination, inspired others to take up piracy, and spawned works of literature. He began his pirate career while he was first mate aboard the warship ''Charles II''. As the ship lay anchored in the northern Spanish harbour o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Piracy
Piracy is an act of robbery or criminal violence by ship or boat-borne attackers upon another ship or a coastal area, typically with the goal of stealing cargo and valuable goods, or taking hostages. Those who conduct acts of piracy are called pirates, and vessels used for piracy are called pirate ships. The earliest documented instances of piracy were in the 14th century BC, when the Sea Peoples, a group of ocean raiders, attacked the ships of the Aegean and Mediterranean civilisations. Narrow channels which funnel shipping into predictable routes have long created opportunities for piracy, as well as for privateering and commerce raiding. Historic examples of such areas include the waters of Gibraltar, the Strait of Malacca, Madagascar, the Gulf of Aden, and the English Channel, whose geographic structures facilitated pirate attacks. The term ''piracy'' generally refers to maritime piracy, although the term has been generalized to refer to acts committed on land, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Treason Act 1415
The Treason Act 1415 ( 4 Hen. 5. Stat. 1. c. 6) was an act of the Parliament of England which made clipping coins high treason, punishable by death. (The Treason Act 1351 ( 25 Edw. 3 Stat. 5. c. 2) had already made it treason to counterfeit coins.) The act was repealed by the Treason Act 1553 ( 1 Mar. Sess. 1. c. 1), but was revived by the Clipping Coin Act 1562 ( 5 Eliz. 1. c. 11). The act originally only protected English coins, but was later extended by the Coin Act 1575 ( 18 Eliz. 1. c. 1) in 1575 to cover foreign coins " current" within England. By this time the Coin Act 1572 ( 14 Eliz. 1. c. 3) had already made it misprision of treason to clip foreign coins ''not'' current within the Realm. Another act in 1415, the Forgery Act 1415 ( 4 Hen. 5. Stat. 1. c. 7), extended the jurisdiction to try this category of treason to all justices in the realm, instead of just the select few known as the King's justices. The Coin Act 1575 ( 18 Eliz. 1. c. 1) also abolished (f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Capital Punishment
Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty and formerly called judicial homicide, is the state-sanctioned killing of a person as punishment for actual or supposed misconduct. The sentence (law), sentence ordering that an offender be punished in such a manner is called a death sentence, and the act of carrying out the sentence is an execution. A prisoner who has been sentenced to death and awaits execution is ''condemned'' and is commonly referred to as being "on death row". Etymologically, the term ''capital'' (, derived via the Latin ' from ', "head") refers to execution by Decapitation, beheading, but executions are carried out by List of methods of capital punishment, many methods, including hanging, Execution by shooting, shooting, lethal injection, stoning, Electric chair, electrocution, and Gas chamber, gassing. Crimes that are punishable by death are known as ''capital crimes'', ''capital offences'', or ''capital felonies'', and vary depending on the jurisdic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Counterfeit
A counterfeit is a fake or unauthorized replica of a genuine product, such as money, documents, designer items, or other valuable goods. Counterfeiting generally involves creating an imitation of a genuine item that closely resembles the original to deceive others into believing it is authentic. Counterfeit products are often made to take advantage of the higher value of the original product, typically using lower-quality materials or production methods. Counterfeit food, drinks, medicines, and personal care products can contain harmful or inactive ingredients, causing anything from mild issues to serious, life-threatening ones. Counterfeit footwear, clothing, and accessories have been found to contain high levels of lead, arsenic, and phthalates. Forgery of money or government bonds Counterfeit money is currency that is produced without the legal sanction of the state or government; this is a crime in all jurisdictions of the world. The United States Secret Service, mostly ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
17th Century Coin Clipping Shears
17 (seventeen) is the natural number following 16 and preceding 18. It is a prime number. 17 was described at MIT as "the least random number", according to the Jargon File. This is supposedly because, in a study where respondents were asked to choose a random number from 1 to 20, 17 was the most common choice. This study has been repeated a number of times. Mathematics 17 is a Leyland number and Leyland prime, using 2 & 3 (23 + 32) and using 4 and 5, using 3 & 4 (34 - 43). 17 is a Fermat prime. 17 is one of six lucky numbers of Euler. Since seventeen is a Fermat prime, regular heptadecagons can be constructed with a compass and unmarked ruler. This was proven by Carl Friedrich Gauss and ultimately led him to choose mathematics over philology for his studies. The minimum possible number of givens for a sudoku puzzle with a unique solution is 17. Geometric properties Two-dimensions *There are seventeen crystallographic space groups in two dimensions. These are some ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Copper-nickel
Cupronickel or copper–nickel (CuNi) is an alloy of copper with nickel, usually along with small quantities of other metals added for strength, such as iron and manganese. The copper content typically varies from 60 to 90 percent. (Monel is a nickel–copper alloy that contains a minimum of 52 percent nickel.) Despite its high copper content, cupronickel is silver in colour. Cupronickel is highly resistant to corrosion by salt water, and is therefore used for piping, heat exchangers and condensers in seawater systems, as well as for marine hardware. It is sometimes used for the propellers, propeller shafts, and hulls of high-quality boats. Other uses include military equipment and chemical industry, petrochemical industry, and electrical industries. In decorative use, a cupronickel alloy called nickel silver is common, although it contains additional zinc but no silver. Another common 20th-century use of cupronickel was silver-coloured coins. For this use, the typical alloy ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Copper
Copper is a chemical element; it has symbol Cu (from Latin ) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkish-orange color. Copper is used as a conductor of heat and electricity, as a building material, and as a constituent of various metal alloys, such as sterling silver used in jewelry, cupronickel used to make marine hardware and coins, and constantan used in strain gauges and thermocouples for temperature measurement. Copper is one of the few metals that can occur in nature in a directly usable, unalloyed metallic form. This means that copper is a native metal. This led to very early human use in several regions, from . Thousands of years later, it was the first metal to be smelted from sulfide ores, ; the first metal to be cast into a shape in a mold, ; and the first metal to be purposely alloyed with another metal, tin, to create bronze, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Steel
Steel is an alloy of iron and carbon that demonstrates improved mechanical properties compared to the pure form of iron. Due to steel's high Young's modulus, elastic modulus, Yield (engineering), yield strength, Fracture, fracture strength and low raw material cost, steel is one of the most commonly manufactured materials in the world. Steel is used in structures (as concrete Rebar, reinforcing rods), in Bridge, bridges, infrastructure, Tool, tools, Ship, ships, Train, trains, Car, cars, Bicycle, bicycles, Machine, machines, Home appliance, electrical appliances, furniture, and Weapon, weapons. Iron is always the main element in steel, but other elements are used to produce various grades of steel demonstrating altered material, mechanical, and microstructural properties. Stainless steels, for example, typically contain 18% chromium and exhibit improved corrosion and Redox, oxidation resistance versus its carbon steel counterpart. Under atmospheric pressures, steels generally ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
