Company’s ‘coins’ and ‘crowns’ on shaky ground
DURING the Covid19 crisis, a British periodical has circulated a regular email ‘‘antinews newsletter’’, reviving pieces from its archives chosen for their escapist qualities and absence of references to plague, pandemics or quarantine.
In that spirit, and unable to mention politics today, Civis has been puzzling over a series of advertisements, first noticed in a flyer in (despite “No Junk Mail Please”) the letterbox.
Such junk usually reaches the recycling bin unread, but in June 2019 Civis glanced at one and wondered about its wording. A glossy A4, folded to A5, it purported to make an “Important Coin Announcement”. The “National Golden Crown Announcement”, by the Auckland branch of an American company whose business seems to be selling ‘‘collectables’’ (most of which drip sickly sentimentality), advertised the production and sale of a “Centenary of the End of World War
I . . . Golden Crown Coin”, together with a “Certificate of Authenticity”. “Golden”, rather than “gold”, is significant. Its “Pure 24Carat Gold” is only a layer, probably very thin, as the “coin” cost only $29.99 plus $9.99 P&P, said to “save $50”.
The flyer told readers that “our debt to them [all those who fought for their country] is immeasurable, making it more important than ever that we remember their courage with a lasting commemoration”: presumably by helping the company profit from it. An increasing profit, too, as buying this one qualified the buyer to get the next “coin” in ‘‘The First World War Centenary Coin Collection’’ for $79.99 (plus P&P). Prices have gone up since: another “National Golden Crown”, advertised in the ODT in August 2019, “in the Centenary of the Battle of Chunuk Bair” (a bit late: Chunuk
Bair was 1915), cost $99.98 plus P&P. And in December, a “coin” to mark the 1912 sinking of Titanic, starting a ‘‘Legendary Shipwrecks Gold Crown Collection’’, was advertised. On July 4, 2020, the “Centenary of the End of WWI Crown” featured again, in a similar fullpage ODT spread.
What is a crown? What is a coin? Dr Johnson defines “coin” as (modern spelling) “Money stamped with a legal impression”, derived from Latin cuneus (wedge), from metal being cut into wedges to be coined.
The British crown, a silver coin, succeeded the English crown and Scottish dollar after the two kingdoms united in 1707, but has never been part of New Zealand’s everyday currency. Civis remembers halfcrowns (equivalent to 25c), and still has two commemorative crowns, once technically legal tender, marking the Queen’s coronation in 1953 and her father’s proposed visit to New Zealand in 1949.
Crowns aren’t now legal tender
(the last predecimal coins were demonetised in 2006), though the Reserve Bank will pay their face value.
The Reserve Bank still issues commemorative coins, aimed at collectors. An example is the $10 solid gold 2019 coin celebrating the North Island brown kiwi, limited to 500, which sold for $865, nearly twice the lowest price of gold that year. It’s unlikely to be used at its face value, but it’s a coin, and legal tender.
Section 25(1) of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand Act 1989 reads: “The Bank shall have the sole right to issue bank notes and coins in New Zealand”, and Section 29(1): “No person shall make or issue any bank note or coin, other than a bank note or coin issued under this Act.”
The “Golden Crown” flyer says “Approved by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II”. She mustn’t have read the Act: Section 30 forbids the issue of anything resembling a coin except with prior permission of the Bank.
An email to the company found it didn’t have such permission.
While Section 30 of the Act is presumably aimed at counterfeiters, these socalled coins contravene it. And calling them coins appears to be misrepresentation of goods for sale, illegal under the Fair Trading Act 1986. Why doesn’t the company simply call them medallions, rather than telling lies and breaking the law?