Talk:Latin Monetary Union

Standard
How was the standard defined? By weigth of silver/gold??


 * Yes. Specifically, 4.5 grams of silver or 0.290322 grams of gold (a ratio of 15.5 to 1), which info I have added to the article Nik42 08:40, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)


 * Yes, but not only:
 * The different countries had a de facto similar system before the 1864 convention, like the franc germinal, with gold at 900‰ and silver at 900‰ (5 francs) or 835‰ (to reduce silver export)
 * The diameter was also defined
 * {| class="wikitable"

! Métal ! Nombre d'unités de compte ! Titre en millièmes ! Masse en grammes ! Diamètre en mm
 * + Divisions monétaires de l'Union latine
 * or
 * 100
 * 900
 * 32,25
 * 35
 * -style="background:#eee"
 * or
 * 50
 * 900
 * 16,13
 * 28
 * or
 * 20
 * 900
 * 6,45
 * 21
 * -style="background:#eee"
 * or
 * 10
 * 900
 * 3,23
 * 19
 * or
 * 5
 * 900
 * 1,61
 * 17
 * -style="background:#eee"
 * argent
 * 5
 * 900
 * 25
 * 37
 * argent
 * 2
 * 835
 * 10
 * 27
 * -style="background:#eee"
 * argent
 * 1
 * 835
 * 5
 * 23
 * argent
 * 0,50
 * 835
 * 2,5
 * 18
 * -style="background:#eee"
 * argent
 * 0,20
 * 835
 * 1
 * 16
 * }
 * 0,20
 * 835
 * 1
 * 16
 * }

"Still"
I'm going to air a problem I have with the article. In the first paragraph it is said that the LMU existed when European countries "still" used gold and silver coinage. I realize that circulating gold and silver coins are not to be found in today's Europe, but the phrasing of it (specifically, the word "still") implies that the disappearance of gold and silver were somehow a natural progression away from some sort of antequated system. Thoughts? Paul 04:50, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * I don't see that implication. The fact of the matter is modern nations DO NOT use gold and silver.  Whether you believe that was a natural progression or merely an accident of history, or even a terrible mistake, is beside the point.  They did at that time, and they do not now. - Nik42 08:31, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * Yes, gold and silver were used for a long time before the LMU was created. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.67.202.154 (talk) 05:56, 24 October 2021 (UTC)

Mint Act of 1873
Is the "Mint Act of 1873", mentioned in the article, the Fourth Coinage Act? &mdash; Itai (talk) 21:30, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Papal States
(moved from a good-faith edit on the article)

NOTE: The only logical problem with the above paragraph (first paragraph of history) is that, since the Papal States were forcibly annexed by the Italian Kingdom in 1870, by 1889 there was no "Papal States" to join the Union. In fact, the Papal States began issuing coins based on the Italian Lire in 1866, and continued to do so until the Fall of Rome in 1870. Thereafter, the Rome mint issued coins for the Kingdom of Italy. —Preceding unsigned comment added by ClearNight (talk • contribs) 19:39, 27 February 2007

So why...
...was it "Latin" to begin with? 68.39.174.238 04:00, 22 March 2007 (UTC)


 * See Latin peoples (linguistic). The founding states all use Romance languages as main official or co-official languages. Gestumblindi 18:35, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Gold Eagle
The U.S. couldn't possibly have been in an unofficial monetary union with Canada on the basis of the American Gold Eagle during the time of the LMU, because the Gold Eagle wasn't minted until 1986. Perhaps the author meant the United States $10 gold piece, which is sometimes referred to as an eagle. I don't want to remove it myself because it has a 'citation needed' tag, but perhaps a higher-ranking member should change the reference or remove it all together.

Response: The Mint act of 2 April 1792 was among the places where US $10 gold coins were refered to as eagles. PadicEcu (talk) 20:35, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

Membership
The article states that "The four nations were joined by Spain and Greece in 1868, and Romania, Bulgaria, Venezuela, Serbia and San Marino in 1889."

Henry Parker Willis book A History of the Latin Monetary Union says that Greece joined the Union and that Sapin and Romania entered into negotiations for entry but that these negotions were broken off. He does say that Spain, Romania and other coutries issued coins to the standards of the union, but I know of no reliable reference that they acutally joined the Union. PadicEcu (talk) 19:42, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

! Greece also caused problems. According to the BBC, "its chronically weak economy meant successive Greek governments responded by decreasing the amount of gold in their coins,[10] ! Why is this in the article if we know it's not true? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.149.171.245 (talk) 23:01, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Date Inconsistency?
Under the last paragraph of the History section it is mentioned about the Papal States: "With the tacit agreement of Napoleon III of France, Giacomo Antonelli, the administrator of the Papal Treasury, embarked on an ambitious increase in silver coinage without the prescribed amount of precious metal."

Giacomo Antonelli was, according to his article on the Italian wiki, at the Papal Treasury from 1845–47 while Napoleon of France reigned from 1852–70.

Maybe I'm missing something here but, given the five years in between the two, the above statement seems incorrect to me. --186.79.52.112 (talk) 05:11, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

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currency union vs single currency?
"The Latin Monetary Union (LMU) was a 19th-century system that unified several European currencies into a single currency"

Is this currency union vs single currency? Each country kept its own national currency, didn't they!? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.67.202.154 (talk) 06:21, 24 October 2021 (UTC)

Debasement of coinage
At Papal lira, we have this: "In 1866 Pope Pius IX, whose temporal domain had been reduced to only the province of Latium, decided to join the Latin Monetary Union. A new currency, the lira, was introduced with the same value of the French franc and the Italian lira. It replaced the scudo at a rate of 5.375lire = 1scudo : the rate was calculated thanks to the silver value of the old scudo (26.9grams of 0.900 fine silver) and the new lira (5grams of 0.835 fine silver). However, the Pope's treasurer, Giacomo Antonelli, devalued the purity of the Papal silver coins from 900/1000 to 835/1000, causing big problems for the Union, which later was forced to adopt the new standard." The chronology is very confused. When was the silver coinage debased (from .900 to .835)? (This, the LMU article, suggests that it was after the Vatican joined, but doesn't give a date either. That the only source we have is an undergraduate's final thesis doesn't help but to be fair the reference is incidental to the author's subject and it is perhaps not surprising that her account is not as tight as we would like. The lack of citations makes it impossible to resolve without doing a lot of searching in sources, which really needs an editor with very high proficiency in legal Italian, I assume. If anyone can help, please revise the Papal lira article accordingly. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 18:05, 15 October 2022 (UTC)