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A piedfort (French pronunciation: ''pee-ay-for'' or ''pyay-for''; English pronunciation: ''peed-fert'' or ''peed-fort'') is an unusually thick coin, often exactly twice the normal weight and thickness of other coins of the same diameter and pattern. Piedforts are not normally circulated, and are only struck for presentation purposes by mint officials (such as patterns), or for collectors, dignitaries, and other VIPs.〔 Piedfort is commonly misspelled as "piefort". == History == Piedfort coins were first recorded in France and Great Britain during the Middle Ages, with the first French piedforts appearing in the 12th century. The reason the coins were minted in piedfort form was probably to prevent them from being lost among normal circulating coins.〔(The Piedfort Coin - A Rare Collector's Item | The Royal Mint )〕 Theories for the original purpose of the earliest piedfort coins are: # As patterns for administrative approval.〔(France: coinage survey )〕 # As patterns to show engravers in different mints what an approved design should look like.〔 # As reckoning counters or jetons for mint officials,〔(Woman who found coin worth £2,000 in garden becomes first to be prosecuted for not reporting treasure | Daily Mail Online )〕 akin to a simple milestone or the beads on a more complex abacus.〔(British Museum - Brass reckoning counter, Rechenmeister type )〕〔(Jettons at mernick.org.uk )〕 Later, the higher rarity of piedfort versions of a nation's coinage led to them being used as prestigious diplomatic gifts to kings, nobility, dignitaries, and other VIP's. Note that coin collecting has traditionally been called "the hobby of kings". The demand for piedforts from politically influential coin collectors resulted in such routine production that a ''droit de pied fort'', or "right of piedfort", was instituted as a formal code of rules defining who was entitled to a piedfort version of a new coin design. Edicts of such rules date back to at least 1355 in France.〔(Piéfort - Piedfort - Pieds-Forts - Essais )〕〔(Recueil général des titres: concernant les fonctions rangs ... des présidens, trésoriers de France ), Simon Fournival, 1672.〕 The first British piedforts were silver pennies minted during the reign of Edward I (1239 to 1307). Britain stopped routinely minting piedforts in 1588, but France continued to mint them for at least another 150 years before also ceasing production. The routine production of piedforts began again in France in 1890, and Britain began to produce piedforts available to the public for the first time in 1982.〔 Since then, Great Britain's Royal Mint has become well known for creating many commemorative piedfort coins. China produced piedforts for collectors in 1988.〔CCT720: (1988 to 1999 1 oz silver lunar proof piedfort 12 coin set )〕 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「piedfort」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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