What Is It Worth?

In the early chapters of the Old Testament, we find the story of two brothers, Jacob and Esau, one of whom (Esau) sold his entire inheritance (his “birthright”) to his brother for a single simple meal (a “mess of pottage”).

That might be regarded as a very bad bargain. The more civilized method of determining what things are worth is by establishing a medium of exchange, generally known as money. This represents quite an advance in people’s thinking – because the money in and of itself may have no use or value. At first, it at least had to have some evident substance – which made metallic coinage serve a very important purpose. And various factors put gold at the top of the list of desirable metals.

The nice thing about metallic coinage was that, unlike stones or trees, a uniform set of words or images could be imprinted on it, on both sides. And the most common image on one side was usually the head, probably in profile, of the issuing ruler. The other side might not actually depict a tail – but for the purposes of flipping and gambling it became the side opposite to the head, giving us our familiar duo of “heads” and “tails.” 

Actually, the most common Roman coins, which were already in use back then for betting, had on the reverse side an image of a ship – probably signifying Rome’s domination of the Mediterranean. Hence, the call then was not ‘Heads or Tails,’ but ‘Heads or Ships.’

One very poignant piece of coinage history concerned the early days of the French Revolution. In 1791 King Louis XVI, together with Queen Marie Antoinette and all their children, attempted to flee Paris, where they were being held captive in their own palace. Travelling by coach, their plan was to reach the border and find safety there with Royalist troops. They were in disguise, but at the town of Varennes they were detained, having been recognized. How did this happen? A local baker, bringing them bread, recognized the king from his image on the current coinage! That discovery turned out to be the first step on the road to the guillotine.

But, in subsequent years, there somehow developed the startling idea that you didn’t need metals at all – except for relatively minor transactions. Instead, a paper promise would serve just as well, if it was issued by a government or a bank that could be trusted to back up the promise with actual metal – usually gold or silver. Here in the U.S., within living memory, even the one-dollar bill carried the words “Silver Certificate,” and could legally be taken to a bank and exchanged for an equivalent amount in silver coins.

We still have dimes, quarters, and silver dollars – but in England all metal coinage has been abolished. When I lived there, however, the “Pound Sterling” (then worth about U.S. $2.40) was still the basic unit. It was divisible into 20 shillings, which in turn consisted of 12 pennies, pluralized as Pence. And there were half-penny coins (called what sounded like “hay pennies”) – and there was an even smaller coin, worth a quarter of a penny, and called a farthing (i.e., a “fourth-ing”). But by then there was hardly anything you could buy with one of those except, perhaps, a single small piece of candy in a “sweet shop.” Coins of higher value, in various countries, often had “milled” edges – i.e. tiny little grooves, very close together, all the way around. The purpose of this was to prevent the criminal practice of shaving off small amounts of metal (which might not otherwise be missed) from the edges of a large number of coins and thus acquiring a usable fresh stock of copper or silver.

One interesting feature of the problem of what things are worth is the large number of people whose profession consists of giving answers to that question, based on their training and experience. The need for their services arises, for example, whenever anything of high value, such as an “Estate,” is going to be up for sale. Those particular specialists are known as “appraisers” – and similarly-employed experts are called assayers and assessors. 

Among my published epigrams, there are more than 100 on this topic – but I will close here with one of my favorites:

If I don’t do the things that are not worth doing – who will?