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Matthew Boulton & The Steam-powered Soho Mint

MATTHEW BOULTON AND THE STEAM-POWERED SOHO MINT   Together with James Watt, Matthew Boulton developed steam power in the 1770s, and by 1788 he applied this to minting by developing the first automatic steam-powered coining apparatus in the world. In order to make a coin, the usual practise was to impart a heavy blow from coining dies to a metal blank. The Royal Mint used screw presses, each operated by four hefty men, to imprint an image, whilst a young boy placed the blanks manually between the dies. This was a laborious process, and it was more economic to mint gold coins than copper ones; thus small change was in very short supply. This shortage threatened to retard economic activity, as there was not sufficient coin to pay workers.    Boulton calculated that the Royal Mint could make around 3½ million coin per year, but he reckoned that he could improve this rate considerably, and also make better quality coins. In a letter dated February 1788, Boulton wrote: ‘I was s...
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barmaid's ruin

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  The Barmaid’s Ruin. How a coin led to the fall of barmaids… Posted on 11th June 2022 by Alex Hanrahan In 1887 for her Golden Jubilee, Queen Victoria authorised a new portrait for circulating coinage, as well as a new denomination. This saw the introduction of the Double Florin, which later led to the loss of Barmaid’s jobs and only circulated for 3 years. Featuring a brand-new portrait of the Queen that became colloquially known as the ‘Jubilee Head’ portrait, the Double Florin was the equivalent of 1/5 th of a pound or 48 pennies. However, this coin wasn’t terribly well received and was withdrawn from circulation completely by 1890. The Double Florin  was one of the  shortest-lived British coin denominations   But why? The Double Florin was only produced for four Mint years, partly because the public thought that the crown was balanced precariously on her head and didn’t reflect the Queen with the grace that she deserved.  Because of th...
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 14jun2021  SPINK The “PATINA” Collection Initiated in 1999, there was an idea to produce an official series of six legal tender Millennial coins for a Commonwealth country, like the Solomon Islands or Zambia, which would feature the six monarchs of the twentieth century; Victoria, Edward VII, George V, Edward VIII, George VI and Elizabeth II. British Sculptor Donald R. Golder completed the task of sculpting twenty Royal portraits, which were inspired by contemporary coinage models. The envisaged six-coin series never came to fruition, but two of Golder’s royal portraits were eventually featured on the 2001 Zambia coinage set which commemorates the death of Victoria and the accession of Edward VII in 1901. A parallel series of modern high quality unofficial “retrospective patterns” for Great Britain, Australia, Canada, Cyprus, Hong Kong, Ireland, Isle of Man, Jersey, New Zealand, South Africa, and Southern Rhodesia have been produced using all of Golder’s modern ...
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