I read a great article about private minting in early America that talks about some of the private minters whose copper, silver, and gold coins were widely circulated throughout the country without the federal government having anything to do with the process. I had some questions about how exactly that would work, so in the absence of a historian, I thought I would ask here for some answers that would have to make sense economically.
These coins would have to be considered commodity money rather than fiat money since the government wasn't involved. In order for this to work, would the face value of the coins have to be really close to the intrinsic value?
If the face value and intrinsic value were the same, how would the minters profit without any seigniorage?
Without a central bank, how would money minted by private minters enter circulation?