It's just not cricket to stop people hoarding coins.
But I can understand wanting to stop people from melting them down to use the raw material this causes a great deal of strain and cost on the mint struggling to keep up with demand.
Here in the US, the mints encourage hoarding (at least in larger denominations) by minting the "State Quarters" and now "National Parks" series of quarters, and until recently, the "Presidential" dollars. I thought that the advantages of seigniorage outweighed the cost to produce the coins. If the coin costs more to produce than it is worth, then debase your coin metal more- that is a whole lot easier than enforcing a law, and the seigniorage turns a profit for the government coffers.
The US government has reacted in a similar way in the smaller denominations- they recently enacted a law making it a crime to melt cents or ship cents out of the country for melting, since the value of copper in pre- 1982 cents is over 2 cents. No crime to hoard them though, at least, not yet...
Governments that make coins that the metal is worth more than the coins are morons, this can't last. People will always melt them down, Duh. This goes back it fiat money.
If coins came in Example
1 1/10 ounce Aluminum = $.50
1 1/5 ounce Aluminum = $1
1 ounce copper round = $5
1 ounce silver round = $100
1 ounce gold round + $1000
no one would melt them and the world standard would move to whatever nation introduced this system
now counterfeiting might be a problem?
PS I have about a pound or two of bulk Philippine coins, if any wants them all
Taking a break from swapping for a while, but still interested in pre 1799 Spanish coins, I will make time for that!
