SALE OF GOODS - THE CONTRACT OF SALE GENERALLY - WHAT ARE ‘GOODS’ - UNDER SALE OF GOODS ACT 1893 (REPEALED) (C 71) — CURRENT COIN AS CURIOSITY
A coin which is current coin of the realm may be sold as a curiosity, and in such a case, if the seller was a thief who had stolen it from the owner and who had subsequently been prosecuted to conviction, an order for its restitution to the owner might be made under Larceny Act 1861 s 100 (repealed). Semble: no such order could be made if the coin had been passed into circulation as current money, although it might be possible to identify it.
A thief stole from respondent a £5 gold piece, which by Royal proclamation had been made current coin of the realm, and changed it with appellant, who was a dealer in curiosities, for five sovereigns: Held under the circumstances the coin had not been received by appellant as current coin, and an order might be made under Larceny Act 1861 s 100 (repealed), ordering appellant to restore it to respondent.
The operation of the statute is to revest in prosecutor, on conviction of the thief, the property or the thing stolen, notwithstanding that the property in it has previously passed effectively to a transferee as by sale in market overt (Channel, J). It may be that the true meaning of the saying that money has no earmark is that when current coins of the realm have passed bonâ fide from hand to hand as currency and as money they are considered, for all purposes of property in them, not to be identifiable. They become merely so much money in the possession of the person to whom they have passed. If it is a sovereign, then for all purposes of the property twenty shillings or eight half-crowns are the legal equivalent of the sovereign. If the payment to the man has been made in error the right against him is, as a rule, merely to recover so much money, and not the identical coins. ... The point only arises upon the passing of the coins from one person to another as money. The doctrine that money has no earmark, whatever it means, is undoubtedly a doctrine of our law (Channell J). Current coin may be sold as a curiosity, instead of being transferred as current coin of the realm.
Coin of the realm
1: the legal money of a country
2: something valued or used as if it were money in a particular sphere
No comments:
Post a Comment