COINAGE. 3S 7 
Frs. Cts. 
1. s. 
d 
Rix dollar of Prussia 
4 0 
0 3 
4 
Dollars of North America 
, 5 40 
0 4 
6 
Guinea of England 
25 0 
1 l 
0 
llix dollar of Denmark 
5 70 
0 4 
9 
Piastre of Spain 
5 30 
0 4 
5 
Lere of Italy 
0 85 
0 0 
*i 
Scuds of Rome 
5 53 
0 4 
7 
Ducat of Naples 
4 30 
0 3 
7 
Rouble of Russia 
4 5 
0 3 
4 
Rix dollar of Sweden 
5 80 
0 4 
10$ 
Coin, in architecture, 
a kind 
of dye 
cut 
diagonal-wise, after the manner of a flight of 
a stair-case, serving at 
bottom 
to support 
columns in a level, and 
at top 
to correct 
the inclination of an entablature supporting a 
vault. 
Coin is also used for a solid angle compos- 
ed of two surfaces inclined towards each 
other: whether that angle be exterior, as the 
coin of a wall, a tree, &c. or interior, as the 
coin of a chamber or chimney. 
COINAGE, or Coining, the art of mak- 
ing money, as performed either by the ham- 
mer or mill. Formerly the fabric of coins 
was different from what it is at present. 
They cut a large plate of metal into several 
little squares, the corners of which were cut 
olf with sheers. After having shaped these 
pieces, so as to render them perfectly con- 
formable in point of weight to the standard 
piece, they took each piece in hand again, to 
make it exactly round, by a gentle hammer- 
ing. This was then called a planchet, and.it 
was fit for immediate coining. The engravers 
then prepared, as they still do, a couple of 
steel masses in form of dyes, cut and termi- 
nated by a flat surface, rounded off at the 
edges. They engraved or stamped on them 
the hollow of a head, a cross, a scutcheon, or 
any other figure, according to the custom of 
the times, with a short legend. As one of 
these dyes was to remain dormant, and the 
other moveable, the former ended in a square 
prism ; that it might be introduced into the 
square hole of the block, which, being fixed 
very fast, kept the dye as steady as any vice 
could have done. The planchet of metal 
was horizontally laid upon this inferior mass, 
to receive the stamp of it on one side, and 
that of the upper dye, wherewith it was co- 
vered, on the other. This moveable dye, 
having its round engraved surface resting 
upon the planchet, had at its opposite ex- 
trem tv a fiat, square, and larger surface, upon 
which they gave several heavy blows, with 
a hammer of an enormous size, till the double 
stamp was sufficiently in relievo, impressed 
on each side of the planchet. The strong 
tempering which was and is still given to the 
two dyes, rendered them capable of bearing 
those repeated blows. 
This art, however, has been improved and 
rendered very expeditious, bv several inge- 
nious machines, and by a wise application 
of the surest physical experiments to the 
methods of lining, dyeing, and stamping the 
different metals. The three finest instru- 
ments the mint-men use, are the laminating 
engine ; the machine for making the im- 
pressions on the edges of coins ; and the mill. 
After they have taken the lamina:, or plates 
of metal,' out of the mould into which they 
are cast, they do not beat them on the anvil 
as was formerly done, but make them pass 
and repass between the several rollers of the 
laminating engine, which being gradually 
brought closer and closer to each other, at 
last give the lamina its uniform and exact 
thickness. Instead of dividing the lamina 
into small squares, they at once cut clean out 
of it as many planchets as it can contain, by 
means of a sharp steel trepan, of a roundish 
figure, hollow within, and of a proportion- 
able diameter to shape and cut off the piece 
at one and the same time. After these plan- 
chets have been prepared and weighed with 
standard pieces, filed or scraped to get off 
the superfluous part of the metal, and then 
boiled and made clean, they arrive at last at 
the machine (Plate Clockwork, &c. fig. 9.), 
which marks them upon the edge ; and finally 
at the mill (fig. 10.), which squeezing each of 
them singly between two dyes, brought near 
each other with one blow, forces the two 
surfaces or fields of the piece to fill exactly all 
the vacancies of the two engraved figures. 
The principal pieces of the machine (fig. 
9.) to stamp coins on the edge, are two steel 
lamina?, about a line thick. One half of the 
legend, or of the ring, is engraven on the 
thickness of one of the laminae, and the other 
half on the thickness of one of the other ; 
and these two laminae are straight, although 
the planchet marked with them is circular. 
When they stamp a planchet, they first put 
it between the laminae in such a manner, as 
that these being each of them laid fiat upon 
a copper-plate, which is fastened upon a very 
thick wooden table, and the planchet being 
likewise laid flat upon the same plate, the 
edge of the planchet may touch the two 
lamina: on each side, and in their thick part. 
One of these laminae is immoveable, and fast- 
ened with several screws ; the other slides 
by means cf a dented wheel, which takes 
into the teeth that are on the surface of the 
lamina. This sliding lamina makes the 
planchet turn in such a manner, that it re- 
mains stamped on the edge, when it has made 
one turn. Only crown and half-crown pieces 
are thick enough to bear the impression of 
letters on their edge. 
The coining engine or mill (fig. 10.) is so 
convenient, that a single man may stamp 
20,000 planchets in one day. Gold, silver, and 
copper planchets, are all of them coined with 
a mill, to which the coining squares (fig 11.) 
commonly called dyes are fastened ; that 
of the face under, in a square box furnished 
with male and female screws, to fix and 
keep it steady ; and the other above in a little 
box with similar screws, to fasten the coining 
square. The planchet is laid flat on the 
square of the effigy, which is dormant ; and 
tnen they immediately pull the bar of 
the mill by its cords, which causes the 
screws set within it to turn. This enters 
into the female screw, which is in the 
body of the mill; and turns with so much 
strength, that by pushing the upper square 
upon that of the effigy, the planchet, violent- 
lv pressed between both squares, receives 
the impression of both atone pull, and in the 
twinkling of an eye. The planchet thus 
stamped and coined, goes through a final 
examination of the mint wardens, from whose 
hands it' comes into circulation. 
In the coining of medals, the process is 
the same in effect with that of money ; the 
principal difference consisting in this : that 
money, having but a small relievo, receives 
its impression at a single stroke of the en- 
3 C 2 
gine ; whereas for medals, the height of this! 
relievo makes it necessary that the stroke 
be repeated several times : to this end the 
piece is taken out from between the dyes, 
heated, and returned again; which process, 
in medallions and largo medals, is repeated 
fifteen or twenty times before the full impres- 
sion is given: care must be taken every time 
the planchet is removed, to take olf the su- 
perfluous metal, stretched beyond the cir- 
cumference, with a tile. Medallions, and 
medals of a high relievo, are usually first cast 
in sand, on account of the difficulty of stamp- 
ing them in the press, where they are put 
only to perfect them ; because the sand does 
not leave them smooth, clear, and accurate- 
enough. 
Coinage, British. It was only in the 
reign of William III. that the hammer-money 
ceased to be current in England, where till 
then it was struck in that manner as in other 
nations. Before the hammer-specie was call- 
ed in, the English money was in a w-retched 
condition ; having been filed and clipped by 
natives as well as foreigners, insomuch that 
it was scarcely left of half its value. The 
British coinage is now wholly performed in 
the Tower of London, where there is an es- 
tablishment for it under the title of the mint. 
Formerly there were here, as there are still 
in other countries, the rights of seignorage and 
brassage: but since the eighteenth year of 
king Charles II. there is nothing taken either 
for the king or for the expences of coining; 
so that weight is returned for weight, to any 
person who carries his gold and silver to the 
Tower. The specie coined in Great Britain 
is esteemed contraband, and not to be ex- 
ported : but all foreign specie may be sent 
out of the realm, as well as gold and silver in 
bars, ingots, dust, &c. 
Counterfeiting the king’s money, or bring- 
ing false money into the realm counterfeit to 
the money of England, clipping, washing, 
rounding, filing, impairing, diminishing, fal- 
sifying, scaling, lightening, edging, colouring, 
gilding ; making, mending, or having in one’s 
possession, any puncheon, counter-puncheon, 
matrix, stamp, dye, pattern, mould, edger, 
or cutting-engine : all these incur the penalty 
of high treason. And if any person shall 
counterfeit any such kind of gold or silver, as 
is not the proper coin of the realm, but 
current therein by the king’s consent, lie 
shall be guilty of high treason. 
If any person shall tender in payment any 
counterfeit coin, lie shall for the first offence 
be imprisoned six months, for the second 
offence two years, and for the third offence 
shall be guilty of felony without benefit of 
clergy. 
Blanching copper or other base metal, or 
buying or selling the same ; and receiving or 
paying money at a lower rate than its denomi- 
nation imports; and also the offence of coun- 
terfeiting copper half-pence and farthings; 
incur the penalty of felony, but within clergy. 
Counterfeiting coin not the proper coin of 
this realm, nor permitted to be current there- 
in, is misprision of treason. A person buying 
or selling, or having in his possession, clip- 
pings or filings, shall forfeit 500/. and be 
branded in the cheek with the letter R, 
And any person having in his possession % 
coining-press, or castirigbars or ingots of sil- 
ver in imitation of Spanish bars or ingots, 
shall forfeit 500/, 
