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TABLE OF GOLD COINS UNWORN. 
Assay. 
Weight. 
Value. 
CU.gl\ 
dw, gr. 
s. d. 
Single pistole of Milan 
4 
Single pistole of Savoy 
4 8i 
Double ducat of Castile, Genoa, Portugal, Florence, Hun- 
gary, and Venice 
b. 1 2i 
4 ll 
18 17.7 
Single ducats of the same places 
1 2i 
2 51 
9 3.8 
Double ducats of several forms, in Germany 
1 1 
4 11 
18 4. 
Single ditto 
1 1 
Q 9 
Double ducat of Genoa 
1 2 
^ •-’2 
4 11 
18 6.5 
Single ducat of Genoa, Besanqon, and Zurich 
1 2 
2 61 
9 3.2 
Pistoles of Rome, Milan, Venice, Florence, Savoy, Genoa, 
Orange, Trevon, Besailqon 
w. 0 Oi 
4 6 
16 6.7 
Ducat of Barbaiy, with Arabic letters 
2 1’ 
2 
2 t6i 
9 3.5 
Coin, laws relating to. Counterfeiting 
the king’s money, or bringing false money 
into tlie realm counterfeit to the money of 
England, clipping, washing, rounding, filing, 
impairing, diminisliing, falsifying, scaling, 
lightening, edging, colouring, gilding, mak- 
ing, mending, or having in one’s possession, 
any puncheon, counter puncheon, matrix, 
stamp, dye, pattern, mould, edger, or cut- 
ting engine : all these incur the penalty of 
high treason. And if any person shall coun- 
terfeit any such kind of gold or silver, as 
are not the proper coin of the realm, but 
current therein by the king’s consent, he 
.shall be guilty of high treason. 
If any person' shall tender in payment 
any counterfeit coin, he shall for the first 
offence, be imprisoned six months ; for tlie 
second offence f wo 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 
denomination doth import; and also the 
offence of counterfeiting copper halfpence 
and farthings ; incur the penalty of felony, 
but within clergy. Counterfeiting coin not 
the proper coin of this realm not permitted 
to be current therein, is misprision of trea- 
son. A pereon buying or selling, or having 
in his possession, clippings or filings, shall 
forfeit 5001. and be branded in the cheek 
with the letter R. And any person having 
in his possession a coining-press, or casting 
bars or ingots of silver in imitation of Spa- 
nish bars or ingots, shall forfeit 5001. 
A reward of 40/. is given for convicting 
a counterfeiter of the gold or silver coin ; 
^ and to/, for a counterfeiter of the copper 
coin. 
COINING, the art of making money, 
which has hitherto been performed by the 
hammer or the mill. The first operations 
are the mixing and melting of the metal, 
because there is no species of coin of pure 
gold or silver, but requires a quantity of 
alloy. See Allo'v. For gold coin the al- 
loy is a mixture of silver and copper, as 
silver alone would make the coin too pale, 
and the copper alone would give it too high 
a colour. The alloy is used for the purpose 
of rendering the coins harder, and less lia- 
ble to wear, or to be diminished by art. 
When the gold and silver are completely 
melted and mixed, they are cast into long, 
flat bars, nearly of the tliickness of the coin 
to be cast. In coining by the mill, which 
has been the only method in use for the last 
260 years, the bars are taken out of the 
moulds, and scraped, brushed, flattened in 
a mill, and brought to the proper thickness 
of the species to be coined. The plates 
thus reduced as nearly as possible to the 
proper thickness, are cut into round pieces, 
called blanks, or planchets, with an instru- 
ment fastened to the tower end of an arbor, 
whose upper end is formed into a screw 
which being turned by an iron handle^ 
turns the arbour, and lets the steel, well 
sharpened in form of a punch-cutter, fall on 
the plates ; and thus a piece is punched out. 
The pieces are now to be brought to the 
standard weight by filing or rasping, and 
whqt remains of the plate between the cir- 
cles is melted again. The pieces are next 
weighed in an accurate balance, and those 
that prove too light are re-melted ; but those 
that are too heavy are filed to the standard 
weight. When the blanks are adjusted, they 
are carried to the blanching-house, where the 
blanks are bi’ought to their proper colour. 
They are next milled, by means of a ma- 
chine which consists of two plates of steel 
in form of rulers, on which the edging is en- 
graved, half on the one and halt on the 
