Mint (facility)
The origin of the word "mint" is ascribed to the manufacture of silver coin at the temple of Juno Moneta in 269 BCE Rome.
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.
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 rich iconography of the obverse of the early electrum coins contrasts with the dull appearance of their reverse which usually carries only punch marks.
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.
Square pieces of metal were also cut from cast bars, converted into round disks by hammering and then struck between dies.
In 1553, the French engineer Aubin 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.
By 1786, two-thirds of the coins in circulation in Britain were counterfeit, and the Royal Mint responded to this crisis by shutting itself down, worsening the situation.
[11] He invented a steam driven screw press in the same year (his original machinery was being used at the Royal Mint until 1881, almost a century later), which worked by atmospheric pressure applied to a piston.
The firm sent over 20 million blanks to Philadelphia, to be struck into cents and half-cents by the United States Mint[12]—Mint Director Elias Boudinot found them to be "perfect and beautifully polished".
Designed by Heinrich Küchler, the coins featured a raised rim with incuse or sunken letters and numbers.
[9] Boulton was finally awarded a contract by the Royal Mint on 3 March 1797, after a national financial crisis reached its nadir when the Bank of England suspended convertibility of its notes for gold.
