Throughout history governments have debased the coinage by calling in the full-bodied coins, melting them down, mixing the precious metal with a base metal, and issuing more of the debased coinage than they had withdrawn of the full-bodied coins. If a legal tender law treated the debased coinage as good as the full-bodied coinage in the settlement of debts, an economist would expect that A the debased coins would circulate and the full-bodied coins would be hoarded B the full-bodied coins would circulate and the debased coins would be hoarded