Coinage standards

A Münzfuß () is an historical term, used especially in the Holy Roman Empire, for an official minting or coinage standard that determines how many coins of a given type were to be struck from a specified unit of weight of precious metal (the Münzgrundgewicht or coin base weight). The Münzfuß, or Fuß ("foot") for short in numismatics, determined a coin's fineness, i.e. how much of a precious metal it would contain. Mintmaster Julian Eberhard Volckmar Claus defined the standard in his 1753 work, Kurzgefaßte Anleitung zum Probieren und Münzen ("Brief Guide to Proving and Coining"), as follows: "T