I design and make jewellery and want to use current UK sterling coins in my work. Some cutting / alteration of the coins would be needed so I approached the Treasury for info on doing this. I was directed to the relevant UK law which states anyone wanting to break up or melt down a coin needs to request permission from the Treasury saying what will be done to the coin, how, who will do it and how many coins will be used. I submitted all this information only to be told that the treasury never grant permission to cut coins. My subsequent efforts to ask why they request the info first has been ignored. Anyway I would like to distance my project from the treasury so I thought I might be able to get more help from the people who genuuinely are interested in coin discussion, namely the posters of the forum! I have seen various other jewellers working with current UK coins both in UK and abroad, seemingly not worrying about the possible illegality of it. One jeweller suggested I have the work done aboad to get round the law - would this work? Does anyone know what the position is for magicians' coins which are often cut up from existing UK currency - do they just assume the treasury won't find out, or care? Finally - has anyone ever been prosecuted for cutting a coin? What was the penalty? Thanks for any help you can offer.
Very simple answer - Parliament requires it, not the Treasury, which has no control over the MPs. I will be very surprised if you get much help about how to break the law from our members. At least most of them, and probably all, try to avoid being involved in criminal conspiracies. "Lots of others are doing it" is not a defense to crime in any common law or civil law jurisdiction. I don't know about other legal systems, but I strongly doubt it. You'd better review UK import law to see if bringing altered coins into the country is banned. Short of searching the records of every criminal court in the UK there's really no way to tell if there have been prosecutions. A proper search of the appellate court records (which are all published) would, however, turn up any cases that were appealed. Go back to the law and see what penalties are authorized for convicted violaters, and you will learn the maximum possible penalty. Generally, common law courts impose first offense sentences below the maximum. All of that said, to CoinTalk Bob. I completely agree with you that the Treasury rule is silly, but I'm not a citizen of the UK and can't vote for an MP committed to passing a law overruling the Treasury. US law is more forgiving of folks like you who, frankly in my opinion, desire to destroy the collectibility of perfectly good coins, and only forbids alteration (including mutilation) done with fraudulent intent.
I was under the impression that the law this side of the pond was the same, as long as you are not intent on defrauding anyone I dont see a problem, I know that they (treasurary) dont like people reproducing coins of the realm or notes, but using them in Jewlery? Take a walk round some of the Jewlery shops and see how many Soverigns you can find that have been adapted to jelery, then have a look at the Royal Mint site LOL http://www.royalmint.com/RoyalMint/web/site/PackedSets/7PWSS06.asp De Orc :kewl: PS Melting down coinage is illigal. but why would you want to melt it down?
I see coin jewlry on the internet all the time from modern to ancient. Most / Many just seem mount the coin and they do not seem to harm the coin itself. Some even have a ring for the coin that will open and release it thus allowing one to replace or change coins of similar size. Very interesting stuff. I admit that I have had one very nice Roman coin mounted on a silver pendant but mounted in a way that it did not require altering or damaging the coin in any way. The coin survived nearly 2000 years, it can handle being worn for a few decades more. ^^ I see these a lot and they seem to use modern circulation coins often times. I read on one site selling these that they are chopped actual coins, seems to me that is illegal if true though most likely they are reproductions?
It is not illegal in the US. You can do anything you want to US coins as long as you do not intend to defraud someone by what you do.
My bad...it is indeed not against the law. Title 18 United States Code, Section 331 Whoever fraudulently alters, defaces, mutilates, impairs, diminishes, falsifies, scales, or lightens any of the coins coined at the mints of the United States, or any foreign coins which are by law made current or are in actual use or circulation as money within the United States; or Whoever fraudulently possesses, passes, utters, publishes, or sells, or attempts to pass, utter, publish, or sell, or brings into the United States, any such coin, knowing the same to be altered, defaced, mutilated, impaired, diminished, falsified, scaled, or lightened - Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both I may be wrong but it DOES however seem to be against the law to mutilate paper money? Title 18 United States Code, Section 333 Mutilation of national bank obligations Whoever mutilates, cuts, defaces, disfigures, or perforates, or unites or cements together, or does any other thing to any bank bill, draft, note, or other evidence of debt issued by any national banking association, or Federal Reserve bank, or the Federal Reserve System, with intent to render such bank bill, draft, note, or other evidence of debt unfit to be reissued, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than six months, or both. Learn something new everyday! Thanks.
Thanks for the replies so far. I'd like to state that I'm not asking anyone to help me break the law however, nothing in my OP is asking for that. My application for treasury permission suggests my desire to remain within the law, as does my question about how (eg US) law applies to other countries (eg UK ) coins in terms of cutting them up. If I can avoid breaking the law by taking that route I will do. Maybe that's what other jewellers are doing - I don't know. That's why I'm asking. If it can't be done legally, I won't do it. I'm interested in how this law has come in to being and if it is still viewed as relevant, despite the hostile welcome, I hope other forum members will continue to comment and give their opinions on the subject. Thanks! Bob
Bob, You need to realize you are talking about the laws of two different countries. In the US there is nothing illegal about what you want to do. In the UK it is illegal, or apparently so. Personally I don't really know for sure if it is or isn't. When you say you contacted the Treasury, I assume you mean the US Treasury. And when you say that you were directed to the UK law, I assume you mean you were directed to it by someone you contacted at the US Treasury - is this correct ? Or did you contact someone in the UK ? Either way, as long as you are in the US when you do this - you are not breaking the law. The US law that applies has been quoted directly, it says - "Whoever fraudulently alters, defaces, mutilates, impairs, diminishes, falsifies, scales, or lightens any of the coins coined at the mints of the United States, or any foreign coins which are by law made current ........." The key word in this law is fraudulently - what you are doing is not fraudulent nor do you have any fraudulent intent. So you would not be breaking the law - period. However, there are those collectors who do not like to see this sort of thing happen to coins. It makes them unhappy, hopefully you can understand that. But they are your coins - you can do with them as you will
Not really, the key here is the phrase "evidence of debt". A dollar bill, regardless of denomination, is not evidence of debt. What the law prohibits would be the destruction or alteration of a note at the bank for example, for if this note were destroyed evidence of your bebt to the bank would be gone. That's what the law is trying to prevent - someone destroying evidence that they owe someone else money.
A further clarification: I'm in UK to begin with, want to use approx. 100 UK coins out of the 1.3 billion of its kind in circulation & contacted the UK treasury. The illegality would be to cut the coins in UK. It looks like the Treasury don't extend the same law to other countries as, of course, they have their own laws, and there are no laws about taking small numbers of coins out of the UK.
Bob I am UK based and have seen coin Jewlery including at the Royal mint LOL how it all came about though um I think we can go back to pre milled coins whaen some people would clip or shave a bit of silver off a coin therby lowering it's weight & value (lots of bits of silver soon add up LOL) this practice was made illagle, but hammerd coins were then superseeded by milled coins making the practice of clipping rather harder to do (Milled edges etc) De Orc
I wondered if that was the case, but I wasn't sure. About the only suggestion I could make would be for you to contact the Royal Mint and ask them how they manage to legally make jewelry out of British coinage. There's obviously a way because they do it.
They only do it with non-current coins, it's fine to cut / mount old coins. The mint refer me to the Treasury, the Treasury don't enter into discussion! Fortunately, you chaps do. Incidentally I posted on a magic site about coins in magic and it seems the police regularly hound one coin magician for creating his own magic coins out of existing currency, has appeared in court &c. Phew!
Just goes to show how silly things are getting when you chase a magician for playing with a few coins De Orc :headbang:
Whoever mutilates, cuts, defaces, disfigures, or perforates, or unites or cements together, or does any other thing to any bank bill, draft, note, or other evidence of debt issued by any national banking association... ...with intent to render such bank bill, draft, note, or other evidence of debt unfit to be reissued... The way I read it is if you mutilate a bill so that it is unfit to be used as currency and this was your intent when mutilating it...its a crime. I found a rather informative answer to this and it seems that its a bit up in the air: Title 18 United States Code, Section 333 Mutilation of national bank obligations Whoever mutilates, cuts, defaces, disfigures, or perforates, or unites or cements together, or does any other thing to any bank bill, draft, note, or other evidence of debt issued by any national banking association, or Federal Reserve bank, or the Federal Reserve System, with intent to render such bank bill, draft, note, or other evidence of debt unfit to be reissued, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than six months, or both. ---------------------------------- This statute can also be found online on Cornell Law School's Legal Information Institute website: http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/333.html this statute appears to be rarely cited, and does not appear to have any associated regulatory provisions in the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR). The United States Code, Annotated, has only one case law annotation for this statute, Keese v. Zerbst, 88 F.2d 795 (C.C.A. Kan., 1937), certiorari denied 57 S.Ct. 933 (1937). That case involved a person who was convicted of a forgery offense, and attempted to argue that he should only have been convicted of defacing currency. "Certiorari denied" indicates that the United States Supreme Court refused to hear the case, and allowed the Kansas court decision to stand. Note that this is also an intent-based crime. An element of the offense is "...intent to render such [currency] unfit to be reissued." As there does not appear to be any case law interpreting this statute, and there is nothing on point in the CFR, it is difficult to say how this would be applied by the courts if the defendant intended to destroy the currency but had no specific regard for his acts' effect on the ability of the Federal Reserve System's ability to reissue the note. Given that intent requirement, it seems unlikely that a prosecution would be possible if the primary purpose of the destruction of the currency was not specificly to keep the bill from being reissued. http://www.moneyfactory.gov/document.cfm/18/104 Defacement of currency in such a way that it is made unfit for circulation comes under the jurisdiction of the United States Secret Service.
