Castaing machine
[2] After learning about the invention via the French ambassador, King Henry II dispatched the Comptroller of Finance Guillaume de Marillac and François Guilhem, Master of the Mint in Lyon, to observe the machinery.
[2] Schwab's press was turned with a weighted wooden handle, which exerted even pressure across the coinage blank, creating a sharper and more precise strike than hammering.
[3] This allowed for the expanding metal to fill the collar, creating reeding, designs or edge lettering at the same time as the obverse and reverse images were struck onto the coin.
[8] According to a pamphlet published in Blondeau's name, his process is described as "a new invention, to make a handsome coyne ... that shall not only be stamped flat on both sides, but shall even be marked with letters on the thickness of the brim,"[9] which was intended to prevent clipping.
[6] He went on to say "[a]s touching the new way, which is ready and expeditious, and can be based upon the thynne and currant money, I am the inventor of it, and only I know itt, as I can make appeare by experiences, if it be the pleasure of the State to imploy me.
[13] Following his swearing in as Lord Protector in 1653, Oliver Cromwell became a proponent of Blondeau's coinage method, which had yet to find favour in the nation's minting establishment.
[15] The proposed mint never came into existence, but in 1656, Blondeau was given official appointment to strike £2,000 worth of coins bearing Cromwell's portrait with captured Spanish silver.
[17] However, the numismatist Peter B. Gaspar determined that Blondeau's Cromwell-era coinage was struck without a collar, which suggests that he used a machine to impart the edge lettering prior to striking.
[19] He received a contract from the Mint, which he fulfilled until his death in 1672, to work as an engineer for tools, to instruct moneyers, and to conduct his edge lettering process.
[23] King Louis XIV favoured the invention, but his financial minister, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, believed that it would not be economically viable to pay the expenses required to put it into use.
[24] In 1686, over Colbert's objection, the French Council of State entered a contract with Castaing wherein all of the nation's gold and silver coinage would include edge lettering created by his machine.
[25] In 1691, Masselin was dismissed, as he and his clerks were found to have stolen from the Mint during the reformation of the coinage, and Castaing was appointed to perform the edge lettering and restriking in his place.
