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The guinea is a coin of approximately one quarter ounce of gold that was minted in the Kingdom of England and later in the Kingdom of Great Britain and the United Kingdom between 1663 and 1814. It was the first English machine-struck gold coin, originally worth one pound sterling,〔 equal to twenty shillings; but rises in the price of gold relative to silver caused the value of the guinea to increase, at times to as high as thirty shillings; from 1717 until 1816, its value was officially fixed at twenty-one shillings. Following that, Great Britain adopted the gold standard and ''guinea'' became a colloquial or specialised term. The name came from the Guinea region in West Africa, where much of the gold used to make the coins originated.〔Chambers, Robert (1885). ''Domestic Annals of Scotland''. Edinburgh : W & R Chambers. p. 259.〕 Although no longer circulated, the term ''guinea'' survives in some circles, notably horse racing,〔 and in the sale of rams, to mean an amount of one pound and one shilling (21 shillings) or one pound and five pence in decimalised currency. The name also forms the basis for the Arabic word for the Egyptian pound ', as a sum of 100 ''Qirsh'' (i.e., one pound) was worth approximately 21 shillings at the end of the 19th century. == Origin == The first guinea was produced on 6 February 1663; a proclamation of 27 March 1663 made the coins legal currency. One troy pound of 11/12 fine gold (i.e. 22 carat or 0.9167 pure - by weight) would make 44½ guineas,〔H. G. Stride, "The GOLD Coinage of Charles II", in the British Numismatic Journal, vol.28 (1955), see http://www.britnumsoc.org/publications/Digital%20BNJ/pdfs/1955_BNJ_28_28.pdf〕 each thus theoretically weighing 129.438 grains (or 8.385 grams). The denomination was originally worth one pound, or twenty shillings, but an increase in the price of gold during the reign of King Charles II led to the market trading it at a premium. The price of gold continued to increase, especially in times of trouble, and by the 1680s the coin was worth 22 shillings. Indeed, in his diary entries for 13 June 1667, Samuel Pepys records that the price was 24 to 25 shillings.〔Wikisource:Diary of Samuel Pepys/1667/June〕 The diameter of the coin was 1 inch (just over 25 millimetres) throughout Charles II's reign, and the average gold purity (from an assay done in 1773 of samples of the coins produced during the preceding year) was 0.9100. "Guinea" was not an official name for the coin, but much of the gold used to produce the early coins came from Guinea in Africa. The coin was produced each year between 1663 and 1684, with the elephant appearing on some coins each year from 1663–65 and 1668, and the elephant and castle on some coins from 1674 onward. The elephant - with or without the castle - symbolises the Royal Africa Company (founded in 1660), whose activities on the Guinea Coast of Africa resulted in the importation of much gold into England.〔 〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Guinea (British coin)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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