Coinage Act of 1792 - Authorization and Free Coinage

Authorization and Free Coinage

The Act authorized production of the following coins:

The coins were to contain the following markings:

• One side was to have an impression emblematic of liberty, with the inscription "Liberty", and the year of the coinage.
• The reverse side of each of the gold and silver coins was to have the figure or representation of an eagle with the inscription "U S A."
• The reverse of the copper coins was to have an inscription expressing the denomination.

The Act defined the proportional value of gold and silver as 15 units of pure silver to 1 unit of pure gold. Standard gold was defined as 11 parts pure gold to one part alloy composed of silver and copper. Standard silver was defined as 1485 parts pure silver to 179 parts copper alloy. The Act also specified the dollar as the "money of account" of the United States, and directed that all accounts of the federal government be kept in dollars, "dismes", cents, and "milles", a mille being one-tenth of a cent or one-thousandth of a dollar. The silver content of a dollar under this act was almost exactly equal to 1/₅ of the silver content of the contemporary British pound sterling, or 4 British shillings.

Under Sec.14, any person could bring gold or silver bullion and have it coined free of charge, or later for a small fee, exchange it immediately for an equivalent value of coin. The paragraph summary states: "Persons may bring gold and silver bullion, to be coined free of expense;"

Quality control measures were implemented in that from each separate mass of gold or silver used to produce coins, three coins were set aside by the treasurer. Each year on the last Monday in July, under the inspection of the Chief Justice, the Secretary and Comptroller of the Treasury, the Secretary of State, and the Attorney General, the coins were to be assayed and if the coins did not meet established standards, the officers were disqualified from office. The meetings later became formalized as the United States Assay Commission, which continued meeting until it was disbanded in 1980.

Section 19 of the Act established a penalty of death for debasing the gold or silver coins authorized by the Act, or embezzlement of the metals for those coins, by officers or employees of the mint; this section of the Act apparently remains in effect and would, in theory, continue to apply in the case of "any of the gold or silver coins which shall be struck or coined at the said mint." (At present the only gold or silver coins struck by the US mint are the American Silver Eagle and the American Gold Eagle coins, some Proof coinage at the San Francisco Mint, such as the silver US State Quarters, and much of the Commemorative coinage of the United States.) All other sections of the act have been superseded, as for example the Coinage Act of 1834 changing the silver-to-gold weight ratio. Various acts have subsequently been passed affecting the amount and type of metal in U. S. coins, so that today there is no legal definition of the term "dollar" to be found in U. S. statute. Current statutes regulating coinage in the United States may be found in Title 31 of the United States Code.