15 SEPTEMBER 2007, Page 18

Silver, not gold

Sir: Paul Johnson asserts that the Maria Theresa thaler (still circulating as a currency in East Africa when I first went there in the 1950s') was a gold coin (And another thing, 8 September). But it isn't gold, as anybody who has spent time in Africa or the Levant knows. It is a silver coin, first minted in 1740 when the Empress succeeded her father, Charles VI of Hungary. Since 1780, the year of the Empress's death, the coin was always dated with that year. I believe that the last minting was in Vienna in 2002.

Anthony Weale Wellow, nr Bath