But a bimetallic standard has its problems; the free economy ratio tends to drift away from the legal ratio, and Gresham's Law begins to work.
This was the French bimetallic standard, with a ratio of 15 5, the cóndor being equal to the napoleón of 50 francs.
The U.S. was torn whether it should operate on a greenback, gold, or bimetallic standard.
This began a long series of attempts for America to create a bimetallic standard for the US Dollar, which would continue until the 1920s.
A problem with bimetallic standards was market prices of the metals changed, and they changed relative to one-another.
There was no bimetallic standard due to the coinage act of 1873 (also known as the Crime of '73) that demonetized silver.
The Netherlands was initially on a bimetallic standard, with the guilder equal to 605.61 milligrams of fine gold or 9.615 grams of fine silver.
In 1881, a currency reform introduced a bimetallic standard, which went into effect in July 1883.
Spain adopted the French bimetallic standard on January 1, 1859, with the peseta equal to 4.500 g fine silver or 290.322 mg fine gold.
His 25 year campaign for a bimetallic standard made him a friend and advocate for western miners.