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In numismatics, the term milled coinage (also known as machine-struck coinage) is used to describe coins which are produced by some form of machine, rather than by manually hammering coin blanks between two dies (hammered coinage) or casting coins from dies.
Until 1550, coinage techniques used in European mints had not progressed from the hammered coinage of Ancient Greece. This was problematic because an increase in the supply of bullion from central Europe and America was overworking mints. That led to low quality coins which were easily forged or clipped, i.e. precious metal was shaved from the edges of the coins. In accordance with Gresham's law, the clipped and forged coins drove good coins out of circulation, depreciating the currency. [1]
Leonardo da Vinci's notebooks showed there was a better way [2] and Donato Bramante, the architect who made the initial plans for St. Peter's Basilica, developed a screw press to make the lead bullae attached to Papal documents. [3] In 1550, the French ambassador to Augsburg, Charles de Marillac, saw a way for France to get an economic advantage over the Holy Roman Empire when he learned that a local engineer had perfected a mechanical process of rolling bullion to the required thickness, cutting blanks from the rolled metal, and striking coins from those blanks. This technology was significantly more advanced than the general manufacturing processes of the 16th century [4] making the coins difficult to counterfeit. The negotiations which obtained rights to the process for France were so secret that the inventor was identified with a codename, but he was most likely Marx Schwab. Aubin Olivier went to Augsburg to learn the technique and Henry II of France made him chief engineer of a mechanized mint in Paris, called the Moulin des Étuves, on 27 March 1551. This mint produced well-struck and perfectly round gold and silver coins. Having perfectly round coins made it easy to detect clipping, but the coiners' establishment would have none of this and within a decade the Moulin des Étuves' ex-employees were finding work in Navarre and England. [5]
In England, a 1560 proclamation of Elizabeth I exchanged old debased coins for new pure coins. The Tower Mint added machinery to its hammering for this "great recoinage". Eloy Mestrelle undertook the technology transfer from France, but when the great recoinage ended mint authorities found him redundant and in 1578 he was hanged for counterfeiting. [6] In 1632, Charles I employed another French refugee, Nicholas Briot, to improve coinage standards in both England and Scotland, which had its own coinage until 1707, but the English Civil War ended his machine coinage. Yet another Frenchman, Peter Blondeau, provided machinery for a proposed coinage designed by Thomas Simon with Oliver Cromwell's portrait. The restoration of 1660 ended that, but in 1662 Charles II recalled Blondeau to establish a permanent machine-made coinage. He employed a secret process for placing lettering or other designs on the edges of coins. [7] The inscription chosen for the edge—DECVS ET TVTAMEN, meaning an ornament and a safeguard—refers to the protection against clipping which the lettered edge provided. [8] In accordance with Gresham's law, however, the inferior hammered coins limited the circulation of his coins until the hammered coins were demonetized in 1695. [9]
Meanwhile, in continental Europe, France readopted machine made coins in 1639. Both machine-made and hammered coins continued through the recoinage of French silver in 1641, but by now machine-made coinage's time had come, and hammered French coinage ended in 1645. [10] Zurich and Heidelberg experimented with coinage machinery in 1558 and 1567 respectively, and the Hall mint in Tirol permanently adopted coinage machinery in 1567. Unlike the screw press used in France and England, Hall used a roller press. Here two cylindrical dies impressed designs on bullion which rolled between them. Coins were then cut from the rolled and impressed metal. This technique spread from Hall to Cologne in 1568, Dresden in 1574, Kremnica and Danzig in 1577, as well as other small mints. Its most significant impact occurred when Philip II of Spain used his personal funds to build a mint at Segovia which used this technique to convert silver from the Americas to coins efficiently. This allowed the king to pay his debts at a better rate than he otherwise could. The Segovia mint was owned by the King's Royal House; but other Spanish mints, which were run by the National Treasury, continued hammered coinage for decades. [11]
The Industrial Revolution shifted the focus of the economy from a rural to an urban, money based, enterprise. [12] The main technology of the Industrial Revolution, the Watt steam engine, also increased the overall level of economic activity. [13] Both of these factors increased the demand for money. Factories were financed by introducing paper money and credit, but low-denomination coins were required to pay their workers and in England copper coins were scarce. [14] Matthew Boulton had backed Watt's development of the steam engine, and he used it to power coin-making machinery at his Soho Manufactory. [15] Boulton struck coins for the East India Company, supplied steam powered coining machinery to the Moscow mint, [16] and manufactured private tokens which circulated widely in England. [14] In 1797, Boulton received a contract to strike royal British copper coins called cartwheels. In 1805, he received a further contract to supply steam powered coinage machinery when the British Royal Mint left the Tower of London and established a new facility on Little Tower Hill. [16]
When Spain introduced coinage to America in 1536, coins were still hammered. The fineness of the silver in this coinage was reduced in 1732 and the Mexico City mint began striking the new coins using machinery. [17] Other Spanish American mints followed and their thaler size silver coins are widely known as Spanish Milled Dollars. [18] The Spanish Milled Dollar, and its successor the Mexican Peso, were widely used in trade with the Sinosphere, where coins were previously cast. In what is now Vietnam, emperor Minh Mạng introduced a coin based on the Spanish Milled Dollar in 1832. The subsequent French rulers of the area had a coinage based on the Spanish Milled Dollar struck at the Paris mint. [19] Commodore Perry opened Japan to foreign trade, which was mostly paid for in Mexican pesos, in 1853. In 1870, two years after the shogunate was overthrown, the restored Emperor Meiji built a mint at Osaka and imported minting machinery from Birmingham, England for it. [20] Likewise, Spanish Milled Dollars and Mexican pesos became the primary currency used for trade in large parts of southern China during the mid 1800s. China struck similar coins for Turkestan in 1877, and for its own use in 1890. [21]
In modern practice in the United States, milling, or a milled edge, can refer to the raised edge on the coin face, applied by a special milling machine after the planchets are cut out and polished. In addition, the reeding of coins of higher value, applied by the collar holding the coin when it is stamped, can be considered part of the milled edge. [22] [23]
A coin is a small object, usually round and flat, used primarily as a medium of exchange or legal tender. They are standardized in weight, and produced in large quantities at a mint in order to facilitate trade. They are most often issued by a government. Coins often have images, numerals, or text on them. The faces of coins or medals are sometimes called the obverse and the reverse, referring to the front and back sides, respectively. The obverse of a coin is commonly called heads, because it often depicts the head of a prominent person, and the reverse is known as tails.
The penny of Great Britain and the United Kingdom from 1714 to 1901, the period in which the House of Hanover reigned, saw the transformation of the penny from a little-used small silver coin to the bronze piece recognisable to modern-day Britons. All bear the portrait of the monarch on the obverse; copper and bronze pennies have a depiction of Britannia, the female personification of Britain, on the reverse.
The Royal Mint is the United Kingdom's official maker of British coins. It is the oldest company in the United Kingdom and is currently located in Llantrisant, Wales, where it moved in 1968.
The half sovereign is a British gold coin denominated at one-half of a pound sterling. First issued in its present form in 1817, it has been struck by the Royal Mint in most years since 1980 as a collector's and bullion piece.
A mint is an industrial facility which manufactures coins that can be used as currency.
The Coinage Act of 1792, passed by the United States Congress on April 2, 1792, created the United States dollar as the country's standard unit of money, established the United States Mint, and regulated the coinage of the United States. This act established the silver dollar as the unit of money in the United States, declared it to be lawful tender, and created a decimal system for U.S. currency.
The ducat coin was used as a trade coin in Europe from the later Middle Ages to the 19th century. Its most familiar version, the gold ducat or sequin containing around 3.5 grams of 98.6% fine gold, originated in Venice in 1284 and gained wide international acceptance over the centuries. Similarly named silver ducatons also existed. The gold ducat circulated along with the Florentine florin and preceded the modern British pound sterling and the United States dollar.
The term écu may refer to one of several French coins. The first écu was a gold coin minted during the reign of Louis IX of France, in 1266. The value of the écu varied considerably over time, and silver coins were also introduced.
The American twenty-cent piece is a coin struck from 1875 to 1878, but only for collectors in the final two years. Proposed by Nevada Senator John P. Jones, it proved a failure due to confusion with the quarter, to which it was close in both size and value.
The Seated Liberty dollar was a dollar coin struck by the United States Mint from 1840 to 1873 and designed by its chief engraver, Christian Gobrecht. It was the last silver coin of that denomination to be struck before passage of the Coinage Act of 1873, which temporarily ended production of the silver dollar for American commerce. The coin's obverse is based on that of the Gobrecht dollar, which had been minted experimentally from 1836 to 1839. However, the soaring eagle used on the reverse of the Gobrecht dollar was not used; instead, the United States Mint (Mint) used a heraldic eagle, based on a design by late Mint Chief Engraver John Reich first utilized on coins in 1807.
The Flowing Hair dollar was the first dollar coin issued by the United States federal government. The coin was minted in 1794 and 1795; its size and weight were based on the Spanish dollar, which was popular in trade throughout the Americas.
This glossary of numismatics is a list of definitions of terms and concepts relevant to numismatics and coin collecting, as well as sub-fields and related disciplines, with concise explanations for the beginner or professional.
From c. 1124 until 1709 the coinage of Scotland was unique, and minted locally. A wide variety of coins, such as the plack, bodle, bawbee, dollar and ryal were produced over that time. For trading purposes coins of Northumbria and various other places had been used before that time; and since 1709 those of the Kingdom of Great Britain, and then of the UK.
A mint mark is a letter, symbol or an inscription on a coin indicating the mint where the coin was produced. It should not be confused with a mintmaster mark which is the mark of the mintmaster.
The Pittman Act was a United States federal law sponsored by Senator Key Pittman of Nevada and enacted on April 23, 1918. The Act authorized the conversion of up to 350,000,000 standard silver dollars into bullion and its sale or use for subsidiary silver coinage, and directed purchase of domestic silver for recoinage of a like number of dollars. For each silver dollar converted into bullion, the Act also called for the temporary removal from circulation of an equivalent value of Silver Certificates. These certificates were to be temporarily replaced with a new issuance of Federal Reserve Bank Notes, including $1 and $2 denominations for the first time.
The Great Recoinage of 1696 was an attempt by the English Government under King William III to replace the hammered silver that made up most of the coinage in circulation, much of it being clipped and badly worn.
Peter Blondeau was a French moneyer and engineer who was appointed Engineer to the Royal Mint and was responsible for reintroducing milled coinage to England. He pioneered the process of stamping lettering onto the edge of coins.
The Castaing machine is a device used to add lettering and decoration to the edge of a coin. Such lettering was necessitated by counterfeiting and edge clipping, which was a common problem resulting from the uneven and irregular hammered coinage. When Aubin Olivier introduced milled coinage to France, he also developed a method of marking the edges with lettering which would make it possible to detect if metal had been shaved from the edge. This method involved using a collar, into which the metal flowed from the pressure of the press. This technique was slower and more costly than later methods. France abandoned milled coinage in favour of hammering in 1585.
The 1804 dollar or Bowed Liberty Dollar was a dollar coin struck by the United States Mint, of which fifteen specimens are currently known to exist. Though dated 1804, none were struck in that year; all were minted in the 1830s or later. They were first created for use in special proof coin sets used as diplomatic gifts during Edmund Roberts' trips to Siam and Muscat.
A coining press is a manually operated machine that mints coins from planchets. After centuries it was replaced by more modern machines.
