You said: “Yeah, Joseph was on the money….

I understand that the relative values of the curency - being 1,2,4 and 7 make it the most efficient values possible. Making change is such a system would be the easiest possible.”

Indeed. Kirk Holland Vestal and Arthur Wallace (1981) had pointed this out in their book, “The Firm Foundation of Mormonism” [LA: LL Co.]. Their reasoning, to my mind, seems iron-clad.

I am even willing to go beyond this. This very ease in calculating change also makes maintaining the gold/silver “basket” of Nephite money in proper balance–thus helping to keep prices stable.

Actually, this “dual standard” is somewhat common, as both gold and silver have been accepted as money, even before recorded history. Note that ancient Israel, Greece and Rome and others all had both silver and gold money. However, I know of no premodern nation that actually fixed the values of silver to gold as a ratio.

But I do know of two from the 19th century: France (Which fixed silver value at 1/15 of gold) and the USA (with a 1/16 value). In his book “Money Mischief,” Milton Friedman claims that France’s inflation rate from 1896-1910 and the deflation rate from 1870-1896 were only about half that of the UK.

Really, the UK represented a change from ancient practice.

The UK’s adoption of a “monometallic” standard came from Isaac Newton’s stint as “Master of the Mint” (sort of Ben Bernanke’s equivalent). While price spikes were more likely than under a “bimetallic” standard, by making making gold coins “unclippable” (that is, one cannot without detection shave pieces off of coins, then make new ones from the shavings), he limited possible inflation to the maximum gold production.

Are there any examples of such “dual standard” currencies functioning in the real world? If so, was this the rationale for them, or was it more a happy accident. And, if not, why not?

I understand that the relative values of the curency - being 1,2,4 and 7 make it the most efficient values possible. Making change is such a system would be the easiest possible.