Silver as standard of value

Often appears with: sinking fund · silver value depreciation · public finance and debt · money, coin, and credit

Usually: commentary or gloss (1) · skepticism (1)

An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations primary

Adam Smith · 1776 (composed/publication period); modern imprint not specified beyond a 1852 reprint
BOOK I. > L.21,333,333 : 6 : 8. In the course of the second Punic war, the As was still further reduced, first, from two ounces of copper to one ounce, and afterwards from one ounce to half an ounce; that is, to the twenty-fourth part of its original value. By combining the three Roman operations into one, a debt of a hundred and twenty-eight millions of our present money, might in this manner be reduced all at once to a debt of L.5,333,333 : 6 : 8. Even the enormous debt of Great Britain might in this manner soon be paid. (49/56)

This passage is an index listing on silk manufacture, silver as a standard of value, and sinks funds, describing coinage rules, silver’s value dynamics, and failures of the British sinking fund.

*Silk manufacture*, how transferred from Lucca to Venice, 166. *Silver*, the first standard coinage of the northern subverters of the Roman empires, 16. Its proportional value to gold regulated by law, 17. Is the measure of the value of gold, ib. Mint price of silver in England, ib. Inquiry into the difference between the mint and market price of bullion, ib., 18. How to preserve the silver coin …