Early Milled coins - "Overdates"

[Guest DAS]

Can anyone help me with any information on early coin pressing techniques ( pre Boulton) I am interested in how "overdates" and other mis-strikes occured with early milled coins 1700 - 1750 , (which were presumably made on hand operated presses.) DAS

[Sylvester]

Can anyone help me with any information on early coin pressing techniques ( pre Boulton) I am interested in how "overdates" and other mis-strikes occured with early milled coins 1700 - 1750 , (which were presumably made on hand operated presses.) DAS

Overdates are simple. Basically if too many dies are made in a year, or some dies are still useable, or have plenty of life left in them, then all that happens is instead of making a new die the old one has the last digit of the date overpunched with the current date.

So a 1708 die would become a 1709 with the 9 over 8

Similarly 1709 could become 1710with 10 over the 09 bit.

Sylvester.

[Guest DAS_I'm_a_Guest]

Thanks Sylvester. Did the mint keep records of how many dies they used? Were dies for copper coinaged identifed by number do you know?

[Sylvester]

Thanks Sylvester. Did the mint keep records of how many dies they used? Were dies for copper coinaged identifed by number do you know?

I don't know about that. I suppose they would have kept records somewhere, but whether any of these records have survived is another matter!

Not sure about the copper.

I guess that would be a bit like die numbers in the Victorian period if they did though!

[Chris Perkins]

I've never seen any numbers for that kind of thing.

Usually the mintage numbers in any given year are just for the coins struck that year, regardless of how they were dated.

Chris

[Sylvester]

I've never seen any numbers for that kind of thing.

Usually the mintage numbers in any given year are just for the coins struck that year, regardless of how they were dated.

Chris

But the beauty of die numbers is that you can actually work out a rough estimate of how many coins were minted by a particular die in any year.

You find the average die out put that any particular die can be expected to produce, (i had a figure somewhere but it's not at hand now) then you can find all the die numbers for that date (i can get those) and divide the total mintage figure that year by the number of dies.

Hopefully the average die out put number and the number you arrive at will be within a few hundred thousand of each other at the most, give or take.

And by studying how often you come across certain numbers you can figure out which dies were the least used and which were the most used.

Obviously that's greatly simplified but it can be a wonderful study to do!

Sylvester.

[Guest DAS]

That's neat Sylvester! Which references do you use for die numbers by date?

DAS

[Sylvester]

That's neat Sylvester! Which references do you use for die numbers by date?

DAS

Try this website...

http://www.tclayton.demon.co.uk/dieno.html

This is not an exhaustive list, there may be others unrecorded out there, but it be safe to say these are the majority.

I had a figure somewhere for how long the average die lasted, (i.e how many coins it would be expected to mint), but can i find it? can i....

Syl.

[Chris Perkins]

Good old Tony Clayton again.

I emailed once or twice to see if he would cross link, never got a reply!!

I refuse to link to him now, but his site is bloody good.

Chris

[Guest DAS]

Thanks Syl. . I see you got a mention on Tony's site as well ...

[Sylvester]

Good old Tony Clayton again.

I emailed once or twice to see if he would cross link, never got a reply!!

I refuse to link to him now, but his site is bloody good.

Chris

Erm i haven't heard anything from him in ages...

Is he still out there?

And yes Das i get everywhere...

[Chris Perkins]

Sylvester,

I was never lucky enough to make a first contact. If you could tell him about predecimal.com and ask if he would consider cross linking i'd be very grateful.

Chris

[Sylvester]

Sylvester,

I was never lucky enough to make a first contact. If you could tell him about predecimal.com and ask if he would consider cross linking i'd be very grateful.

Chris

I only made first contact on rcc, that US internet group, but i haven't seen him on there in ages!!!

I dunno where he's gone...

[Guest Eliza]

There are two histories of the Royal Mint that I know of (discussed in some detail on the Early Milled thread), and both of them have good detailed step-by-step descriptions of coining. There's tremendous competition among diemakers and coiners from the 1660s right into the time of Pistrucci, some times with a bit of nefarious backroom wheeling and dealing. Pretty fascinating stuff. The biggest problem was the quality of the metal used to make the dies and its hardiness in the mechanized striking process.

Pepys is quoted as noting that a die could turn out about £10,000 before replacement, as of May 1663.

I recommend "A New History of the Royal Mint," edited by C. E. Challis (Cambridge: the University Press, 1992), pgs. 346-351.

[Guest Eliza]

Let me explain to DAS that Sylvester and I are trying to track down mintage figures for 1663-1817 coins. The problem is that the Mint is producing according to WEIGHT and VALUE rather than by coin as we moderns do. It makes it deeply difficult to estimate what denominations were produced in what quantities.

And THEN there are a couple recoinages along the way ...

E.

[Guest DAS]

This is very helpful Eliza, thankyou.

DAS