The Pine Tree Shilling; K. Cullinane

But what to do about the fluctuMr. Cullinane is co-founder and Academic Director of the Academy of the Rockies, a one-year work - study - adventure prep school at Bonners Ferry, Idaho. 434 ating values of these varied Euro pean coins so unpopular in local trade? The answer to their coinage problem came at a meeting in Boston in 1652 when the men of the business community agreed among themselves to purchase, use, and mutually honor coins which would be produced by a local goldsmith. Accordingly the colony's General Court granted a franchise to Capt. John Hull and his partner, Robert Sanderson, to mint twelvepenny, sixpenny and threepenny coins .. The early Puri tans were ready to turn to the marketplace for their money, sturdily ignoring the prohibitions of their English rulers. The twelvepenny coin became the famous Pine Tree Shilling. After several modifications it was stamped with "Masathusets" and a pine tree on one side, and "1652"

and "New England" on the other. Today the coin is little men tioned in books, articles or pam phlets dealing with coinage and 1972 THE PINE TREE SHILLING 435 monetary problems and that's too bad, for of all the marketplace coins produced in America, the Pine Tree Shilling was the first, and one which adhered most close ly to the principles of coinage in tegrity. The particularly sound policy of the Pine Tree Shilling minters was their practice of striking coins only when a custo mer came to their shop, bringing his own silver with him.I What a check on inflation! Most minters - government or private - using their own supply of metal, mint coins in whatever quantity they think expedient, and assign them a value. The metal mayor may not be of high value; a dollar coin may be minted of 90t worth of silver, for instance, . or lOt worth of cupro-nickel. The difference between the lOt worth of metal and the $1.00 cost to the public is kept by the mint. That difference is called seignioralge, implying a lordly right of the rul er to such profit.

This system of minting allows the minter - in most cases the government - to control and man ipulate not only the quality of the currency, but also the quantity 1There are a few other instances of this minting policy in American history. For an interesting account of post-Revo lution private minting see, William C. Wooldridge, UNCLE-SAM THE MONOP OLY MAN (Arlington House, New Ro chell, New York) Chapter 3. which will be available to the marketplace. This is why it is said that those who control the cur rency control the commerce of a country. Captain Hull and Robert Sand erson did not control the quantity of coinage minted for the market place; the marketplace - their cus tomers - controlled the quantity. The two minters limited them selves to guaranteeing the quality of the coins. They produced 100 shillings for every fifteen ounces of silver brought in by their cus tomers; each shilling was guar anteed to contain .15 ounce of silver. In establishing the silver quality they desired, the merchants and the General Court purposely kept the content of silver at three fourths that of the English shil ling. They hoped thereby to keep the coin in the Boston area and to prevent its moving, a La Gresham's Law, into European trade.~ ~ In this the Bostonians were foiled; the coin did move out into international trade. Because the Pine Tree Shilling contained the same quality alloy as the English Shilling, it did not matter to the Europeans that it was a lighter coin. Its value was simply three-fourths the value of the English Shilling - if the English Shilling was valued at twenty cents, the Pine Tree Shilling's value was fifteen cents. As a result of this international acceptance, the General Court attempted to halt its· natural outflow by imposing a heavy fine upon anyone caught export ing more than twenty of the coins.

436 THE FREEMAN July An Honest Assay Into Hull's small mint came silver buttons, tankards, goblets, knives, old sword hilts, spoons and European coins to be assayed, melted down and converted into the Pine Tree Shilling. Bullion from Peruvian mines, sometimes taken by privateers from Spanish galleons, found its way to the Boston melting pot as well. Often the pieces to be melted contained a higher percentage of silver than the finished coins, which were alloyed with copper, so an honest assay was important. To determine the silver content of the variously shaped family pieces brought into their shop, the two men used the technique developed nineteen hundred years earlier by Archimedes: the pieces to be melted were \veighed, then sub merged in a tub of water which was filled up to an overflow spout so that the object spilled its exact volume of water into a measuring vessel beneath the spout. Given the volume of the object and its weight, the minters computed the percentage of silver it contained.

Their fee was handsome - they kept one out of every twenty shil lings minted plus wastage - but their risk was great as well, for though they were providing a much needed service, they were also turning their backs on a restriction imposed by the English government which expressly for bade private coinage in the col onies. Risky it may have been, but the Bostonians were ever an in dependent lot, and they needed honest coinage in their commerce. With reliable coins of intrinsic value, hard work by the colonists was more easily rewarded. Mer chants and artisans could sell their goods or labors rather than barter, and they could save the coins they received until they wanted to spend them. So useful and popular was the Pine Tree Shilling that the English government chose to ignore its existence rather than attempt to suppress its circula tion; an important early step toward independence was taken 129 years before that fateful April morning in Lexington.

After the American Revolution - and both before and after the Constitution - private minters supplied Americans with coins of integrity, and thousands of mer chants have minted private tokens to be used in their transactions. But the proud silver coin - the Pine Tree Shilling - was the first. And like so much that emanated from the first generations of New Englanders, it was honest, inde pendent and reliable; an impor tant part of our free-market heri tage. ~ DAVID J. MANDEL It is my argument that an analy sis of our experience with zoning laws since the passage of New York City's comprehensive zoning code of 1916, the model for most of the zoning codes of the United States, compels the conclusion that zoning laws do not accomplish what they were supposed to ac complish, that their premises are faulty, that zoning is an irre·· deemable failure, and therefore, that zoning laws ought to be re pealed. The argument is made with special reference to New York City but without limitation to it or to metropolitan areas.