Chiseler -- is a word I use to describe minor opportunists, con artists and the like. So I decided to look for where it may have come from.During the 1500’s, the Spanish coins were not cut in perfectly round shapes. The weight was what mattered, and not shape. "Chiselers" would chisel a little bit off of the borders of the coins to later combine to make more coins.
Pictured on the right (possibly replicas) of 1497 "real de la ocho" or "piece of eight". Used around the world & as legal tender in North America until 1857.
As late as the mid-19th century, Americans preferred to Spanish dollars instead of American currency as legal tender, because of the silver content in those coins. A Spanish dollar was equivalent to eight reals, which Americans called “bits.” This came to mean two bits was the equivalent of 25¢, one-fourth of a dollar. Eventually, Americans started referring to quarters as “two bits”. An expression my father always used to mean 25¢. Since “two bits” is only worth a quarter, anything that is described as “two-bit” is assumed to be of low value.
Thus the expression "Two-Bit Chiseler".
Clipping is the numismatist's term for coin debasement by shaving off a small portion of a coin's precious metal for profit.
Coin clipping was usually considered by the law to be of a similar magnitude to counterfeiting, and was occasionally punished by death, a fate which befell English chiselers Thomas Rogers and Anne Rogers in 1690.
Coin clipping is why many coins have the rim of the coin marked with milled stripes or reeding, engraved text or some other pattern that would be destroyed if the coin were clipped. This practice is attributed to Isaac Newton, who was appointed Master of the Mint in 1699.
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| A silver 8-Reales (Peso) coin minted in México (1621-65). Credit: Centpacrr |
