milled coinage

In numismatics, the term milled coinage (also known as machine-struck coinage) is used to describe coins which are produced by some form of machine, rather than by manually hammering coin blanks between two dies (hammered coinage) or casting coins from dies. Introduction Until 1550, coinage techniques used in European mints had not progressed from the hammered coinage of Ancient Greece. This was problematic because an increase in the supply of bullion from central Europe and America was overworking mints. That led to low quality coins which were easily forged or clipped, i.e. precious metal was shaved from the edges of the coins. In accordance with Gresham's law, the clipped and forged coins drove good coins out of circulation, depreciating the currency. Leonardo da Vinci's notebooks showed there was a better way and Donato Bramante, the architect who made the initial plans for St. Peter's Basilica, developed a screw press to make the lead bullae attached to Papal documents. In 1550, the French ambassador to Augsburg, Charles de Marillac, saw a way for France to get an economic advantage over the Holy Roman Empire when he learned that a local engineer had perfected a mechanical process of rolling bullion to the required thickness, cutting blanks from the rolled metal, and striking coins from those blanks. This technology was significantly more advanced than the general manufacturing processes of the 16th century making the coins difficult to counterfeit. The negotiations which obtained rights to the process for France were so secret that the inventor was identified with a codename, but he was most likely Marx Schwab. Aubin Olivier went to Augsburg to learn the technique and Henry II of France made him chief engineer of a mechanized mint in Paris, called the Moulin des Étuves, on 27 March 1551. This mint produced well-struck and perfectly round gold and silver coins. Having perfectly round coins made it easy to detect clipping, but the coiners' establishment would have none of this and within a decade the Moulin des Étuves' ex-employees were finding work in Navarre and England. In England, a 1560 proclamation of Elizabeth I exchanged old debased coins for new pure coins. The Tower Mint added machinery to its hammering for this "great recoinage". Eloy Mestrelle undertook the technology transfer from France, but when the great recoinage ended mint authorities found him redundant and in 1578 he was hanged for counterfeiting.