Catalogue description Records concerning Coins, Medals and Dies

The conversion of bars into coins was formerly undertaken for the Mint by the Guild or Company of Moneyers, which established its autonomy in the sixteenth century. In the reorganisation of 1851 their contract was terminated and the company was dissolved. The work was thereafter undertaken by a Coining Department which was combined with the Machinery and Die Department in 1852, and since 1870 has been a branch of the Operative Department.

Two notable instances of recoinage involved the establishment by the Mint of a temporary local organisation. An act for the compulsory recoinage of silver passed in December 1695 was followed by a further act in February 1696 providing for the erection of five country mints, to which clipped coin could be brought in and recoined. They were opened successively in York, Exeter, Bristol, Norwich and Chester, and their work came to an end in 1698.

After the Napoleonic Wars coinage reform was urgent and on the recommendation of the Privy Council Committee on Coin a recoinage of gold and silver was undertaken, gold becoming the sole standard of value and the new silver coins being legal tender only for amounts up to two guineas. All previous silver coin was demonetized and 623 exchange stations were opened to receive it in exchange for the new coin. They were open for this purpose from 13 to 27 February 1817 and the recoinage was complete by the end of the following May.

The provision of dies for coins and medals was until 1851 divided between the engravers of the Mint and the clerk of the irons; the former engraved the matrices and the latter hardened them and prepared the puncheons and dies. In that year these duties fell to a Machinery and Die Department, which in 1852 was combined with the Coining Department, and since 1870 they have been performed by a Die and Medal Branch of the Operative Department.

The design and supply of medals to the monarch and other patrons was from about 1480 an important though sporadic function of the Mint engravers, performed as personal undertakings of the engraver. After they had been disbanded, the Die Department was charged with the manufacture of all medals made in the Mint. At this period the Mint had abandoned all such work save medals for strictly official purposes, and even here confined itself to the emblem; addition of the bar and lettering of the rim were hired out to private contractors until those tasks returned to the Mint in 1870. Two years later the manufacture of battle or campaign clasps was taken over from the War Office and India Office.

The Mint played only a minor part in making the medals and stars created during the First World War but all those of the Second World War were in its charge. It has also started again to accept orders for the design and production of private medals from unofficial clients of standing.

Great seals of the realm and other state seals were regularly cut by the Mint engravers from 1551, again on a personal basis. These too passed to private firms in 1851. Work on state, departmental and overseas seals returned to the Mint in 1901, when the description 'ex officio engraver of His Majesty's seals' was added to the Deputy Master's title.

The Mint Museum, founded on 14 February 1816, was attached to the Die and Medal Branch in 1901. A curator and librarian was appointed in 1913.