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any case fall below that of the gold in the sovereign 
where the possibility existed of turning the coin 
into uncoined gold by the simple process of melting. 
So the effect of seignorage is to keep the value of 
the coin always between the metallic value and that 
value plus the seignorage, and in progressive and 
even in stationary periods to keep it at the higher end 
of this limited space. 
We must be careful not to be confused by changes 
in the mere form of the transaction. For a person 
to take raw material to a manufacturer to be made up 
for himself, and remunerate the manufacturer either 
by letting him keep a part of the product or by paying 
him money for the service rendered, was once a 
common method, but is now obsolete, surviving even 
at Government mints, if at all, only in name. Gold 
producers do not now bring or send their gold to a 
mint and receive back the same gold less seignorage 
and other charges, if any, but sell their gold to the 
mint (or a bank which acts as its agent) for money 
paid to them, and they regard themselves, like other 
producers, as receiving a price for their product. 
So there are ““ mint prices,” prices given by the mint 
for gold, and when a seignorage is exacted, it appears 
in the form of a difference between the mint price 
of an ounce of gold and the amount of coin made out 
of an ounce. When, for example, the mint price of 
an ounce of ‘““standard” (i.e. 4} pure) gold is 
£3 17s. 103d. or £3-894, and that ounce is coined 
into £3:894 sovereigns, this shows an absence of 
seignorage : a seignorage would be introduced by 
the interposition of a gap between the mint price 
and the amount of coin made out of the ounce, 
e.g. a lowering of the mint price to £375 per oz., 
while the ounce continued to be made into 3-894 
sovereigns, would yield the Government a gross 
seignorage of £o0-144, or 2s. 103d. per oz.