Coins showing milled (left) and engraved (right) edges, anti-clipping measures

Coin clipping is the act of shaving off a small portion of the precious metal for profit. It was usually considered by the law to be of a similar nature to counterfeiting, and was even occasionally punished by death. Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1868x1030, 137 KB) Summary Photograph of two coins, the right showing an engraved edge and the left showing a milled edge. ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1868x1030, 137 KB) Summary Photograph of two coins, the right showing an engraved edge and the left showing a milled edge. ... A precious metal is a rare metallic chemical element of high, durable economic value. ... Profit is a positive return made on an investment by an individual or by business operations. ... Law (a loanword from Old Norse lagu), in politics and jurisprudence, is a set of rules or norms of conduct which mandate, proscribe or permit specified relationships among people and organizations, intended to provide methods for ensuring the impartial treatment of such people, and provide punishments of/for those who... A counterfeit is an imitation that is made with the intent to deceptively represent its content or origins. ... In society, punishment is the practice of imposing something unpleasant on a wrongdoer. ... Death is the cessation of physical life in a living organism, or the state of the organism after that event. ...

Early coins often used materials like silver, which was soft and prone to wear. This meant coins naturally got smaller as they aged, so coins that had lost a small amount of silver would go unnoticed. General Name, Symbol, Number silver, Ag, 47 Chemical series transition metals Group, Period, Block 11, 5, d Appearance lustrous white metal Atomic mass 107. ...

Modern coins are made of hard materials, reducing wear. Many coins also have the rim of the coin marked with stripes (milling or reeding), text (engraving) or some pattern that would be destroyed if the coin was clipped. In most modern coins the milling is purely decorative, or an aid to the blind to distinguish different denominations, as the metal is not intrinsically valuable. Engraving is the practice of incising a design onto a hard, flat surface, by cutting grooves into it. ...

External links

• The 1696 Recoinage
• US Mint Fun Facts