Up until the mid 20th century, coins were often made of silver or gold, which were quite soft and prone to wear. This meant coins naturally got lighter (and thus less valuable) as they aged, so coins that had lost a small amount of silver would go unnoticed.
Because coins were made by the government, this act was essentially stealing silver from the state. It was usually considered by the law to be of a similar magnitude to counterfeiting, and was occasionally punished by death.
Coin clipping is why many coins have the rim of the coin marked with stripes (milling or reeding), text (engraving) or some other pattern that would be destroyed if the coin were clipped (a process attributed to Isaac Newton). 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.
Modern coins are made of hard, cheap metals such as steel, copper or a copper-nickel alloy, reducing wear and removing the incentive to clip coins.
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Last updated on Saturday April 26, 2008 at 03:56:23 PDT (GMT -0700)
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