The history of mints correlates closely with thehistory of coins. In the beginning,hammered coinage orcast coinage were the chief means of coin minting, with resulting production runs numbering as little as the hundreds or thousands. In modern mints,coin dies are manufactured in large numbers andplanchets are made intomilled coins by the billions.
With the mass production of currency, the production cost is weighed when minting coins. For example, it costs theUnited States Mint much less than 25 cents to make aquarter (a 25 cent coin), and the difference in production cost and face value (calledseigniorage) helps fund the minting body. Conversely, aU.S. penny ($0.01) cost $0.015 to make in 2016.[1]
The first mint was likely established inLydia in the 7th century BC, for coining gold, silver andelectrum. The first coins known to be minted on European soil come from the island ofAegina. A electron stater bearing the image of a turtle dates back to 7th century BC.[2][3] A mint existed at the ancient city ofCydonia on Crete at least as early as the fifth centuryBCE.[4]
At about the same time, coins and mints appeared independently in China and spread to Korea and Japan. The manufacture of coins in theRoman Republic, dating from about the 4th century BCE, significantly influenced the later development of coin minting in Europe.
The origin of the word "mint" is ascribed to the manufacture of silver coin at theTemple of Juno Moneta in 269 BCE Rome. The goddessMoneta became the personification of money, and her name was applied both to money and to its place of manufacture. Roman mints were spread widely across theEmpire, and were sometimes used forpropaganda purposes. The populace often learned of a newRoman Emperor when coins appeared with the new Emperor'sportrait. Some of the emperors who ruled only for a short time made sure that a coin bore their image;Quietus, for example, ruled only part of the Roman Empire from 260 to 261 AD, and yet he issued two coins bearing his image.
Ancient coins were made by casting inmoulds or by striking between engraveddies. The Romans cast their larger copper coins in clay moulds carrying distinctive markings, not because they knew nothing of striking, but because it was not suitable for such large masses of metal. Casting is now used only by counterfeiters.
The most ancient coins were cast in bulletshaped or conical moulds and marked on one side by means of a die which was struck with a hammer. The "blank" or unmarked piece of metal was placed on a smallanvil, and the die was held in position withtongs. The reverse or lower side of the coin received a "rough incuse" by the hammer. Later a rectangular mark, a "square incuse", was made by the sharp edges of the little anvil, orpunch. The rich iconography of the obverse of the early electrum coins contrasts with the dull appearance of their reverse which usually carries only punch marks. The shape and number of these punches varied according to their denomination and weight-standard.[5] Subsequently, the anvil was marked in various ways, and decorated with letters and figures of beasts, and later still the anvil was replaced by a reverse die. The spherical blanks soon gave place tolenticular-shaped ones. The blank was made red-hot and struck between cold dies. One blow was usually insufficient, and the method was similar to that still used in striking medals in high relief, except that the blank is now allowed to cool before being struck. With the substitution of iron for bronze as the material for dies, about 300 AD, the practice of striking the blanks while they were hot was gradually discarded.
In the Middle Ages bars of metal were cast and hammered out on an anvil. Portions of the flattened sheets were then cut out withshears, struck between dies and again trimmed with shears. A similar method had been used inAncient Egypt during thePtolemaic Kingdom (c. 300 BC), but had been forgotten. Square pieces of metal were also cut from cast bars, converted into round disks by hammering and then struck between dies. In striking, the lower die was fixed into a block of wood, and the blank piece of metal laid upon it by hand. The upper die was then placed on the blank, and kept in position by means of a holder around which was placed a roll oflead to protect the hand of the operator while heavy blows were struck with a hammer. An early improvement was the introduction of a tool resembling a pair of tongs, the two dies being placed one at the extremity of each leg. This avoided the necessity of readjusting the dies between blows, and ensured greater accuracy in the impression.[6]
A furnace for producing molten metal for coin production.
A trussell for use with a pile in producing hammered coins as shown by the moneyer at work.
A mill for the production of 'milled' coins with both coin dies illustrated.
A mill for inscribing or milling the edges of coin flans or planchets.
Roman Denarius issued by T. Carisius (46BCE) showing the moneyer's die, anvil, hammer and tongs
Minting by means of a falling weight (monkeypress) intervened between the hand hammers and the screw press in many places. InBirmingham in particular this system became highly developed and was long in use. In 1553, the French engineerAubin Olivier introduced screw presses for striking coins, together with rolls for reducing the cast bars and machines for punching-out round disks from flattened sheets of metal.[7] 8 to 12 men took over from each other every quarter of an hour to maneuver the arms driving the screw which struck the medals. Later, the rolls were driven by horses, mules or water-power.
Henry II came up against hostility on the part of the coin makers, so the process was largely discarded in 1585 and only used for coins of small value, medals and tokens. The system was reintroduced into France byJean Varin in 1640 and the practice of hammering was forbidden in 1645.[8] In England the new machinery was tried in London in 1561, but abandoned soon afterwards; it was finally adopted in 1662, although the old pieces continued in circulation until 1696.
Boulton 1790 Anglesey halfpenny; the first coin struck by steam power in a collar to assure roundness
Industrial techniques and steam-power were introduced to coin manufacture by industrialistMatthew Boulton inBirmingham in 1788. By 1786, two-thirds of the coins in circulation in Britain were counterfeit, and theRoyal Mint responded to this crisis by shutting itself down, worsening the situation.[9][10] Boulton, business partner of the engineerJames Watt in the firm ofBoulton & Watt for the manufacture ofsteam engines, turned his attention tocoinage in the mid-1780s as an extension to the small metal products he already manufactured in his factory inSoho. In 1788 he established aMint as part of his industrial plant.[11] He invented a steam driven screw press in the same year (his original machinery was being used at theRoyal Mint until 1881, almost a century later), which worked byatmospheric pressure applied to apiston. The piston was in communication with a vacuum vessel from which the air had been pumped bysteam power.
A 19th-century coining press
He installed eight of these state-of-the-art steam-driven presses in his factory, each with the capacity to strike between 70 and 84 coins per minute. The firm had little immediate success getting a license to strike British coins, but was soon engaged in striking coins for theBritish East India Company,Sierra Leone and Russia, while producing high-qualityplanchets, or blank coins, to be struck by national mints elsewhere. The firm sent over 20 million blanks to Philadelphia, to be struck intocents andhalf-cents by theUnited States Mint[12]—Mint DirectorElias Boudinot found them to be "perfect and beautifully polished".[9]
These were the first truly modern coins; themass-production of coinage with steam driven machinery organised infactories enabled the achievement ofstandardized dimensions and uniform weight and roundness, something nocounterfeiter of the day could hope to achieve.[13] Boulton also pioneered special methods to further frustrate counterfeiters. Designed byHeinrich Küchler, the coins featured a raised rim with incuse or sunken letters and numbers.[9] The high-technology of Soho Mint gained increasing and somewhat unwelcome attention: rivals attemptedindustrial espionage, whilelobbying with the Government for Boulton's mint to be shut down.[9]
Boulton was finally awarded a contract by theRoyal Mint on 3 March 1797, after a national financial crisis reached its nadir when theBank of England suspended convertibility of its notes for gold. The twopenny coins measured exactly an inch and a half across; 16 pennies lined up would reach two feet.[9]
French-made coining press from 1831 (M.A.N.,Madrid)
Between 1817 and 1830 theGerman engineerDietrich "Diedrich" Uhlhorn invented the Presse Monétaire, a level coin press which became known as the Uhlhorn Press. His steam driven knuckle-lever press made him internationally famous, and over 500 units had been sold by 1840.[14] The advanced construction of the Uhlhorn press proved to be highly satisfactory, and the use of the screw press for general coinage was gradually eliminated.[15]
This new technology was used at theBirmingham Mint, the largest private mint in the world for much of the 19th century, and was further improved at the Taylor and Challen who began to supply complete press room equipment to national mints around the world, such asSydney Mint, Australia.[16]
By the early 20th century, mints were using electrical power to drive rolls, the advantage being that each pair of rolls could be driven independently without the intervention of cumbrous shafting.
^"RS".Archived from the original on 2005-03-06. Retrieved2004-12-05.—historical, established in 1516 andthalers (tolars in Czech,Slovak andSlovene) were minted there. Thedollar received its name after them (Joachimsthal Groschen led toJoachimsthal, which was further shortened to "thaler" (German), which was transliterated to "daler" (Dutch), which was rendered in English as "dollar")
Lobel, Richard (1999),Coincraft's 2000 Standard Catalogue of English and UK Coins, 1066 to Date, Standard Catalogue Publishers,ISBN978-0-9526228-8-8
Symons, David (2009), "'Bringing to Perfection the Art of Coining': What did they make at the Soho Mint?", in Mason, Shena (ed.),Matthew Boulton: Selling What All the World Desires, New Haven, Ct.:Yale University Press, pp. 89–98,ISBN978-0-300-14358-4
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