“A proclamation is made that a piece of such and such a description shall be valid as so many units of value” (Ibid., 30). “Validity by proclamation is not bound to any material. It can occur with the most precious or the basest metals . . .” (Ibid., 30). The fundamental insight was his recognition that these transitions always require that the state announce a conversion rate (say, so many ounces of gold for so many ounces of silver). Hence, the debts were always nominal and were never actually “metallic”: all debts are converted to the new metal, which proves that all units of account must be nominal.