The Mercury Dime

When I first was given the opportunity to choose my own username on a mainframe computer (actually, a DEC VAX super-mini) in 1989, I asked for Mercury, the Roman messenger god, the patron of merchants (and pirates, it being sometimes hard to tell them apart). Likely inherited from the Etruscans, Mercury is associated with the Greek god Hermes and the Egyptian Thoth, and also, perhaps the Aztec Coyototl, the trickster who invented writing. 

I have been “Mercury” in one form or another on many systems since, and I have held my Gmail account, mike49mercury, for many years. It is true that 49 is my birth year, but to me 49 is the square of 7 for the Mercury 7 astronauts, having lost track of a mercury7 username some decades back. 

 

I sold several articles about the Mercury dime to the American Numismatic Association, the Michigan State Numismatic Society, and others. It does echo the Roman denarius of the Republic with the wings on Liberty’s head modeling the raised face guards on the helmet of Roma. And for better or worse, the coin is in the neo-classical style that was ubiquitous during the gilded age of American aesthetics between the Civil War and the Great Depression. 

As a numismatist, I am a writer, not a collector.
But I can’t make this up from thin air.
So, I do visit coin stores in my town to chat and learn.
And I found this one for myself. 
Very high grade examples like this are extremely common
from the war years 1940-1945
when these were struck in astronomical quantities. 

 

The wings on Liberty’s Phrygian cap (worn by a freed slave) represent freedom of thought. The reverse depicts the Roman fasces, a bundle of rods, the center rod an ax reflecting the absolute authority of the state. In ancient Rome, if found guilty of a felony, the prisoner would be beaten to death with the rods – unless granted the mercy of the ax. Perhaps the best way to resolve that seeming contradiction is to consider the words of the US Supreme Court (Reynolds vs. The United States) in affirming that polygamy is unlawful, regardless of sentiments in the Territory of Utah: You can believe whatever you want, but you cannot do whatever you want. 

 

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

Music Makes You Braver 

Numismatics: the Standard of Proof in Economics 

Forgery and Fraud in Numismatics 

Numismatic Truthseekers 

Hallelujah 

At Oryana Co-op I Took my Change in Bay Bucks

Over the weekend of May 18, we were in Traverse City. After shopping on Front Street, we went to Oryana Community Co-op to buy snacks. We were members when we lived in TC. And at that time, I worked with the Bay Bucks planning committee. So, I took my change in community currency. 

Early Stage Concepts

  

A local currency provides an economic “cul-de-sac” that keeps wealth within a community. Local money tends to stay close to home. This means that profits do not get exported via chain stores and multinational corporations. Instead, people buy and sell goods and services among themselves, with the currency being an accounting tool. About 30 towns have tried the experiment, some with more success than others. 

[Portions of this article first appeared in the Michigan State Numismatic Society MichMatist where it can be found online here. ]

Late Stage Concept

10BB Pre-Production Proof 

In the summer of 2003, I heard a radio interview on WIAA-FM, Interlochen, in which two Traverse City community activists, Chris Grobbel and Natasha Lapinski, explained their plans for a hometown money. They sounded competent and intelligent and the project was compelling to me as a numismatist. I tracked them down by asking around at the Oryana Natural Food Co-op. I interviewed them (and others) for an article that ran in the November 13, 2003 issue of Northern Express here. I wrote a follow-up article for the June 9, 2004 issue here. 

For me, the rewards were in managing the design team. I found three design students at Northwestern Michigan College. Brendan O’Brien, Pauline Viall, and Thomas Loomis launched a model company (OVL Design) and signed off on a Statement of Work. I gave them samples of world currencies, a copy of Standish’s The Art of Money and links to websites for the International Banknote Society and the Paper Money Collectors. 

20BB as Pre-Production Proof

Seeking a printer, I found Deep Wood Press and Chad Pastotnik. (There was another alternative but now I cannot find her name.) Chad did everything he could to help them with their insufficient production budget. We abandoned intaglio printing, hemp paper, die cut corners to facilitate telling by touch, and other craft elements. The final version does have a foil security appliqué. Each note was to carry its own motto: “Regional Community Currency” (BB1); “Traverse Area Community Currency” (BB5); “Bread for Your Watershed” (BB10); and “In Community We Trust” (BB20). Instead all of the backs say "Trustworthy Tools for Local Exchange."

Patty Fabian, a designer with Peninsula Partners in Traverse City, developed a set of proposed logos to support the imaging and branding of Bay Bucks in store windows, on bumper stickers, and on the notes themselves.

5BB (Face) and 1BB (Face and Back)

The final version of the series consists of four notes: BB1, BB5, BB10 and BB20. Each represents an eco-system: Dunes (Dune Lily and Piping Plover); Wetland (Morrell Mushroom and Ringtail Raccoon); Farm (Cherry Blossom and Barn Owl); and Forest (Lady Slipper and Whitetail Deer). The Petoskey Stone pattern supplied the border of all four faces.  

The planning committee identified about 100 local businesses that could benefit from participating in “Bay Bucks.”  About 30 of them were considered early adopters. Oryana Community Co-op was central to the success of Bay Bucks. Among the other participants was the State Theatre, home of the Traverse City Film Festival, a joint effort of Michael Moore and the Chamber of Commerce.

RESOURCES AND READING

• Bay Bucks here: http://www.baybucks.org
• Launching Bay Bucks “Local Money Plan for Homegrown Currency has a Rich Past” Northern ExpressNovember 12, 2003, here.
• “Passing the Bay Bucks: Local Currency Could Hit the Streets This Summer,” (Northern Express, 2004) here. 
• Traverse Ticker (2018) “Yes, Traverse City Still has its own Currency” here.
• Traverse Ticker (2019) “Could Bay Bucks go Digital?” here: 
• “I Took My Change in Bay Bucks” on CoinTalk here.

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

The Purse of Eratosthenes 

Money Without Banks and Governments 

Coffee at the Co-op: Tradition and Novelty

Mere Gold is not enough: Hayek’s “Denationalization of Money” 
Awesome Austin Foods at teh Wheatsville Co-op

Spanish Coins on American Notes

Until 1857, silver and gold coins from Mexico, Spain, France, Brazil, and other nations were legal tender in the United States. We know commonly that that US dollar was modeled directly on the "Spanish milled dollar" or "pieces of eight." However, the influence of international trade on the new republic was very deep and broad.

http://scoan.oldnote.org/

The website linked at left is replete with examples of private banks from the 1830s, 1840s, and 1850s that issued paper money promising American federal dollars (most often, fractions, actually) but showing Mexican or Spanish coins as graphic images. 

We still sometimes call a 25-cent quarter dollar coin "two bits."  Two hundred years ago, one bit was was one Spanish real. Eight reales made a Spanish dollar. When I was in high school in the 1960s, it was a known cheer: "Two bits, four bits, six bits a dollar. All for [our side] stand up and holler." Spanish Mexican culture continued in the West, of course. You can find The Texas Rangers: Wearing the Cinco Peso by Mike Cox (Tom Doherty Associates, 2009). The 5-peso dollar-sized coin of the United Mexican States of 1947 was a much later version of the Spanish dollar and the Republic of Mexico "Cap and Rays" silver 8-reales (1825-1897).

Thames Bank of Laurel, Indiana, 1856, promises Two Dollars
and shows two Mexican 8-reales

The website Spanish Coins on American Notes lists two dozen examples from twelve states. Most of them were "wildcat" banks from the era of unregulated banking. State regulation was no more successful than the constraints of market competition. Even numismatists look askance at that period of rampant laissez faire. A more objective appraisal would put banking in with other businesses. In the frontier era, economies were shaky at best. People enjoyed a lot of opportunity, but few guarantees. We think of "ghost towns" as a consequence of mining in the West, but Michigan has many from the lumber industry, as well from copper mining.

It is also true that along the eastern seaboard, where trade with the United Kingdom dominated, merchants often kept their books in pounds/shllings/pence into the 1830s. The florin and crown coins of the UK were their attempt to bring their currency into some accord with the dollar. Meanwhile the 4-dollar "Stella" gold coin of the United States was our attempt to align with the 20-franc gold coins of France and other nations.

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

The Art of Finance

A Man's Home is His Market

City Air Makes You Free

Thank-You Notes

THE UNWISE SAPIENS OF YUVAL NOAH HARARI

Harper, 2014, 443 pages

I was on a long waiting list despite the many copies at the Austin Public Library. When I was done, I could not renew the checkout because other people were waiting. Gratefully, I did not pay for the book. Despite (or perhaps indicative of) its runway popularity, it is shallow and facile, drawn from second-hand sources and not well integrated in its presentations.

Harari failed to correctly explain the origin of writing, the origin of counting, the origin of money, and the origin of coinage.  They are all tightly bound. In every case, his supporting citations point to other popularizers, rather than validated peer-reviewed academic publications. So, he gets a lot of the details wrong. From those he builds his attractive and erroneous narrative. Finally, like me and other bloggers, he is a synthesizer, collecting and republishing ideas that he likes without actually challenging any of those claims for their want of proof. 

One such assertion is that the agricultural revolution was not worth the price. Domestication of wheat brought longer working hours and slavery. It actually brought malnutrition, and set the stage for periodic starvation never known to hunter-gatherers. I reviewed Against the Grain: How Agriculture Has Hijacked Civilization by Richard Manning (North Point Press,  2004 ISBN: 0865476225) for the Objectivist discussion site, Rebirth of Reason, here  in 2006 and later in 2010 here.  I wrote: "Among Manning's many points is that the "surplus" usually went to a handful of unproductive people, priests and nobles."  

Moreover, as I pointed out in my original review, the nobles themselves hunted -- which they denied to those who were bound to the cultivating fields.  Nobles did not suffer a steady diet of grain.  When times were good, they ate well, a variety -- another point Jacobs made about city life -- with lots of fresh meat." It is an interesting fact to consider. But Harari just stops there. He does not see strawberries in January. Cutting off our food supply is integral to his thesis, which includes disdain for liberal humanism. Harari advocates for the postmodern anti-industrial revolution. 

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

Not Conned by Seghal’s “Coined” 

Debt: the Seed of Civilization 

Accounting for Civilization 

Art as Ordered Narrative

Money as Speech 

Jerry Emanuelson’s Algebraic Proof of Ricardo’s Law of Association

Most likely in the summer of 1970, Jerry Emanuelson published a proof showing that if two people work at two tasks at relatively different rates, they can trade their labor for mutual gain, even if one of them does both tasks better than the other.  His work appeared in The Libertarian Connection #13.  It is known to economists as Comparative Advantage, and it was suggested by Adam Smith, but argued forcefully later (1817) by David Ricardo. However, the formal statement was not known outside of academic economics; and it was, of course, compelling to libertarians. So, Jerry worked out several pages of algebraic inequalities for our benefit. As of this posting, it remains a lost work.

It is specifically inequality that makes Comparative Advantage be true.  The governing assumption is not that A is better than B, but that A and B produce what they trade at different comparative costs within their own economies. They have different opportunity costs. In order to maintain autarky (to produce all of their own goods themselves) they each must give up the opportunity to produce more of what they do better.  Even if Nation A or Person A is better at producing both items, it is still in the interests of both A and B to specialize and exchange, rather than attempting to produce everything for themselves.

Ricardo’s Law of Comparative Advantage also became famous.  Not only do libertarians know all about it …

https://mises.org/library/ricardian-law-comparative-advantage

http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/bios/Ricardo.html

… but even Paul Krugman accepts it: 

http://web.mit.edu/krugman/www/ricardo.htm

If all things were equal this would not work. Or so it is claimed.  In fact, I believe that the economists have not considered an important aspect of human nature that supports trade: alleviation of boredom. Eventually, the carpenter buys a bookcase, rather than making one. He can do it cheaper and better, but he has done enough of it that making another costs marginal utility and brings diminishing returns.  This is an old fact. Ancient Greek cities that produced good local wines exported them, even to other cities that produced good local wines. The wines tasted different, and the difference created value.  Ancient Greek towns named for their wine include Oinoanda in Lycia, Oinoe on the island of Ikaros, and Oiniadai in Akarnania. 

The Libertarian Connection was modeled on the science fiction fanzine. For your subscription, you were allowed to contribute two pages of content. The publishers collated the submissions, copied them, and distributed them to the subscribers.  The magazine came out every six weeks.  Originally, it was mimeographed. Contributors sent their works on stencils. The LC eventually went to photo-offset.

Issue 1 here:  http://fair-use.org/libertarian-connection/1969/02/10/from-the-publishers-of-libertarian-connection

Issue 2 here:  http://fair-use.org/libertarian-connection/issue/2

Issue 3 here: http://fair-use.org/libertarian-connection/issue/3

My comments about LC for Rebirth of Reason here: http://rebirthofreason.com/Forum/GeneralForum/1211.shtml

In those early days, libertarianism was a very small set of people. Dale Haviland, a professional printer, produced the A is A Directory in 1971, which listed just about everyone who wrote an article for a libertarian magazine. He also produced a directory of those publications. That is what made Jerry Emanuelson’s proof important: it influenced a small group of people who themselves went on to become the Libertarian Party, Reason magazine, the Cato Institute, and much else. 

You can find the original treatise On The Principles of Political Economy and Taxation (London: John Murray, Albemarle-Street), by David Ricardo, 1817 (third edition, 1821) as a text file here:

http://socserv2.socsci.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/ricardo/prin/index.html

You can find the algebraic statements for Comparative Advantage in Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage  The bibliography of sources for that article includes these:

· MacDougall, G. D. A. (1951). “British and American exports: A study suggested by the theory of comparative costs. Part I.”. The Economic Journal. 61 (244). pp. 697–724.

· MacDougall, G. D. A. (1952). “British and American exports: A study suggested by the theory of comparative costs. Part II.”. The Economic Journal. 62 (247). pp. 487–521.

· Stern, Robert M. (1962). “British and American productivity and comparative costs in international trade”. Oxford Economic Papers. pp. 275–296.

· Balassa, Bela. (1963). “An empirical demonstration of classical comparative cost theory”. The Review of Economics and Statistics. pp. 231–238.

· Chipman, John S. (1965). “A Survey of the Theory of International Trade: Part 1, The Classical Theory”. Econometrica 33 (3): 477–519. Section 1.8, p.509.

The theory and its algebra were known, but not widely known to those with great interest in promoting free trade.

For much more see, for instance, “Ancient Greece and Wine” in Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Greece_and_wine

But see, also, modern Greece and wine here:

http://enroute.aircanada.com/en/articles/greece-wine-tour

Erwin S. “Filthy Pierre” Strauss bought The Libertarian Connection from Skye d'Aureous and Natalee Hall, and soon changed its masthead to The Connection.  Filthy is active in science fiction fandom. As neither Jerry nor I can find our archives, I wrote to him to see what his terms and conditions may be.

Jerry Emanuelson's homepage is called Future Science here: http://www.futurescience.com/

ALSO ON NECESSARY FACTS

Supplies and Demands

The Shroff

Tokens of Capitalism

What is Legal Tender?

Numismatics: the standard of proof in economics

Sunday at the Co-op

A co-operative recognizes the reinforcing roles of consumer and producer.  I discovered something of truism that at any marketplace with high cultural context, such as a hardware store or fabric store, you could take the people on one side of the counter and switch them with the people on the other side and get the same result.  Co-ops are like that.  A co-operative is a community of providers and users, buyers and sellers, all of whom share a common interest in mutual profit.  Here are the vendors whom I met last Sunday at the Wheatsville Co-operative store on South Lamar  in Austin.

In Austin, Central Texas Bee Rescue (CTBR) sells wild honey and rescued honey.  Wild honey is collected from feral bees.  

They also sell crayons.

 "CTBR has led classes in beekeeping and other agricultural sciences in two Austin Charter schools (grades 1-9) and the Austin Montessori School.  They have also led workshops with Master Gardener Associations, libraries, and other institutions dedicated to education about the environment. They have noticed that beekeeping and caring for other animals has a positive effect on kids who grew up in the city and previously had no experience nurturing and caring. It melts your heart to watch."

 

Karen (right) suffered several small but significant bone injury accidents
over a few years.  Having tried many products,
she became a supporter of SunWarrior. 
"I can't say enough good things about them," she said. 

SunWarrior mineral-rich plant proteins sells a broad and deep range of “super green”  products.  Most are glutine-free.  All are vegan.  Typical ingredients include nrown rice, quinoa, and fermented bio-barley. 

Ismar and Daniel came to Wheatsville to
run taste tests and give out drinking cups.

I first drank Topo Chico about a year after I moved to Austin.  I was guarding a residential high-rise downtown and one of the residents – a serial entrepreneur – treated me to a bottle.  As mineral waters go, I found it to be high quality, richer, more satisfying than the other brands I usually buy, Crystal Geyer, and Whole Foods’ (Italian) Mineral Water. In this product, the sodium, potassium, magnesium, calcium, and manganese come directly from the geology of the spring.  They are not blasted in at a factory.

The legend of Topo Chico tells of an Aztec princess, a daughter of Moctezuma I who was cured of a mysterious ailment by bathing in the mineral spring.  Apparently, the entire royal troup all came home invigorated and refreshed.  

  

Topo Chico is great in cocktails (no surprise there) and, according to the AustinAmerican-Statesman, Topo Chico makes a heck of a coffee.  The company has its fan base, that's for sure.

"There are a plethera of records of co-operatives started out as small grassroots organisations in Western Europe, North America and Japan in the middle of the nineteenth century, however, it is the Rochdale Pioneers that are generally regarded as the prototype of the modern co-operative society and the founders of the Co-operative Movement in 1844." (International Co-operative Association.)

ALSO ON NECESSARY FACTS

Shrugging the Stigma of Success 

Awesome Austin Foods  

Images from SXSW 2013 

Open Secrets