Legal Definitions - brassage

Brassage refers to a historical government charge levied to cover the direct costs associated with manufacturing coins from metal. This fee specifically accounted for the physical expenses of production, such as the raw materials (the metal itself), the labor involved in minting, the use of machinery, and the energy consumed during the coining process. It is distinct from any profit a government might make from issuing currency, which is known as seigniorage.

Here are some examples to illustrate the concept of brassage:

• Imagine a kingdom in the 17th century where citizens could bring their own precious metals, like silver or gold, to the royal mint to be converted into official currency. The government would impose a small fee per weight of metal to cover the expenses of melting, purifying, alloying, stamping, and finishing the metal into standardized coins. This fee, which was designed solely to recoup the mint's operational costs and not to generate profit for the crown, would be an example of brassage.

• Consider a historical national treasury planning to introduce a new series of bronze coins. Before their release, the treasury department meticulously calculates the exact cost of sourcing the bronze alloy, operating the heavy presses, paying the skilled mint workers, and distributing the finished coins to banks. If the government then valued these coins in a way that precisely reflected these production costs, without adding any extra amount for government revenue, that cost component would represent brassage. It's the "break-even" cost of making the money.

• During a period when a government allowed individuals to exchange privately owned gold bullion for official gold coinage, a charge might have been applied. If this charge was precisely calibrated to cover only the expenses of refining the raw gold, creating the coin blanks, striking the intricate designs, and performing quality control checks, without including any additional sum intended as a profit for the state, then that specific cost-recovery charge would be an instance of brassage. It highlights the government acting as a service provider for coining, rather than a profit-maker from the minting process itself.