The Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1860-12-27 00:00:00

THE NEW BRONZE COINAGE.

The following account of the history of the old copper
coinage, and the measures taken for the preparation of
the new bronze coinage will be found interesting :
"In the year 1788, Mr. Boulton, the well-known
partner in business of the celebrated Mr. Watt, first
invented and perfected the beautiful coining machinery
which is in use at the present day, that firm baying
erected a mint at their works, Soho, near Birming-
ham, at which the whole of the copper coinage
which was issued between 1797 and 1806 was executed,
amounting to 4,200 tons in weight. Prior to that
period the operations of preparing and striking the
coin were conducted by a very tedious, expensive,
and rude method, which Mr. Boulton's ingenuity
was destined to supersede. The screw coining press
making from 60 to 100 blows per minute, and driven by
the pressure of the atmosphere acting on a vacuum pro-
duced by a steam-engine, is one of the most perfect and
delicate pieces of mechanism ever contrived. Many
thousands were expended by Mr. Boulton in experi-
ments in the construction of the first press before he
succeeded in producing a really satisfactory coin. His,
perseverance, however, in the end reaped its reward.
The Government were so impressed with the rapidity of
action and improvements at the Soho Mint over the
system then adopted, that they ordered. in 1806, Messrs.
Boulton and Watt to construct the machinery of the
Royal Mint on Tower-hill, which, with the new build-
ings, was completed in 1810, at a total cost of about
£200,000. Subsequently that firm constructed the Rus-
sian,. Danish, Spanish, and Mexican Mints, and also
those at Calcutta and Bombay fcr the East India Com-
pany.

The British Mint has, when greatly pressed, turned
out as much as 150,000 pieces per day.

The new bronze coinage, which is about to replace
the copper coin made at the beginning of this century,
as a work of art hardly comes up to what might have
been expected at the present day, the extreme hardness
of the metal, which consists of 95 parts of copper, four of
tin, and one of zinc, and the thinness of the coin, adding
immensely to the difficulties of its manufacture.

In the course of the past summer the Government
contracted with Messrs. J. Watts and Co. for the execu-
tion and delivery of this bronze coin. The quantity to
be produced by them in the course of the next two
years and a half amounts to the enormous quantity of

1,800 tons. This involved the striking of upwards
of 400,000 pieces per day on an average during the
whole two years and a half. • These pieces have to be
made up into about 60,000 roulcaux per day, wrapped
up in paper, placed in separate cases of the value of £1
each, and packed in strong boxes of £2O each for deli•
very and distribution. More than 40,000 of such boxes
and 800,000 internal cases are required. The old Soho
Mint, after an existence of nearly sixty years, was taken
down about ten years since, to make room for the new.
suburbs of the expanding town of Birmingham ; but the
new Soho Mint, which in the course of the autumn has
risen as if by magic, now executes the work just
described. It appears hardly credible, and shows what
can be done in the present day by energy and capital,
that in the short period of five months a complete
mint, more than half as large again as the Royal Mint,
containing thirteen coining presses, whilst the latter has
only eight, has been erected, and all its beautiful
machinery manufactured and brought into operation.