W. C a r e w H a z l i t t Coinage of the European Continent

48 The Coins of Europe
more obviously than one adapted to a scientific standard,
fixed and enforced by governments.
Every collector has probably met with what are termed
weights belonging to different nationalities and periods.
They usually represent the correct standard of the piece
named on them without respect to the metallic value, as, for
instance, a copper weight balancing a gold ducat or real or
1
an English sovereign. These contrivances appear to have
been intended to assist, when no scales of suitable nicety
were generally available, to test the authenticity of coins, of
which the weight was known through proclamations or
periodical pamphlets, such as in the Low Countries they
designated Placaets, and which were issued at one time
nearly every year. Somewhat similar books of a more
elaborate character were published abroad, furnishing engravings
of money current in various countries, its value, and
its weight. A very singular one, in agenda form, found at
Antwerp,
is in the British Museum.
The very designation Or, pi. Ore, applied to the old
Swedish copper specie, seems to be allied to our word ore or
bullion, as if a certain quantity of metal was originally
bartered for a certain quantity of goods.
The employment of ingots of gold and silver, which has
to a certain extent survived among primitive communities in
the East to the present day, was doubtless very general so
long as no coinage beyond the silver penny and its moiety
existed in any part of Europe. In the celebrated Cuerdale
find, among a large assortment of currency of Anglo-Saxon
and Carlovingian origin, occurred several of these ingots in
silver stamped with a cross, and undoubtedly used in commercial
transactions in the eighth and ninth centuries. So
long as the monetary representation of such lumps of metal
was understood and accepted, the conduct of business on a
larger scale was immensely facilitated, more especially if
similar tokens or equivalents for value in gold were also
once available. The discovery of the hoard at Cuerdale was
perfectly fortuitous.
1
See Catalogue of Denominations, v. " Arnoldus Gulden."