Wiki > For decades, money that expired unless stamped was mostly a theory. …..It was a completely radical idea, especially during a time when nations were on the gold standard.

As a student of monetary history, I have trouble with these claims.  It seems to me that much medieval type changing closely resembles what Gesell was much later proposing.  

We see that taking off in later Anglo-Saxon England, apparently with a new ‘stamp’ applied to pennies every six years, alongside a c. 30% cut in value.  Around the same time in Japan type changing involved a rather surprising 90% loss of value.  Then later in the medieval period, type changing became dominant in parts of Europe, especially in much of German and Austria, with e.g. the Bracteate issues, the Friesacher and Wiener pfennigs etc etc.  Some of these apparently type changed every six months!  I have found it very difficult to get information on how these schemes were administered.  The coins indicate that inflationary changes in weight and fineness were not the norm, thus they seem primarily a tax on money itself by the state.  However there are important cases where a form of inflation was surely inherent to the system, for instance under the later Ilkhans in Persia.  Was manipulation of state debt involved there?  That seems probable to me.

Despite our apparent general ignorance of these schemes, history does tell us one thing very clearly.  They all eventual failed, or were abandoned.

Speaking now as an economics layman, I have a question, perhaps for James?  Since 2008 we have started to get base rates below target inflation rates.  Looks rather Gesellian to me.  Would I be in error to liken this to taxation without representation?

Rob T