Currency Debasement

Before the widespread use of paper and deposit money, coin debasement was one of the principal mechanisms through which authorities altered the monetary supply.

England's Great Debasement occurred during the Tudor period from approximately 1544 to 1551 and involved substantial reductions in the precious-metal content of circulating coins.

In historical commodity-coin systems, debasement typically lowers a coin’s intrinsic precious-metal content or otherwise reduces its mint standard. By contrast, devaluation is an official reduction in a currency’s par or fixed exchange value relative to gold or another currency.