the COINING TECHNOLOGY HERITAGE project

A project for the documentation of minting machines, tools and processes
of the 16, 17 and 18th centuries.

Colaborating museums, libraries, churches, archives and others are in these cities:

Dear colleagues:

The mission of this web posting is two-fold. First, our team would like to show thanks for the assistance provided by many different museums in the creation of our data base on minting machines. But most of all, we hope it will inspire other museums to inspect their displays and warehouses for any new material which will help document the disperse and little known heritage of minting machinery.

Our aim is to locate and document minting machines, tools and processes of the 16, 17 and 18th centuries. Findings show that these artifacts are often hidden away in storage rooms and known only by museum staff. Our team, based in Mannheim, welcomes all information and possible leads to helping find and document these machines and tools in museums or private collections around the world.

This is a unique project intended to document the mechanical, in series production of coinage beginning in the mid 16th century, two hundred years before the start of the Industrial Revolution. It is based on international cooperation with the goal of discovering and promoting knowledge of a specific and little known aspect of our common Technological and Industrial Heritage.

The COINING TECHNOLOGY HERITAGE project Investigation Team

CTH Mannheim, January 2010

The State Castle at Cesky Krumlov has in its museum ten old minting machines which form without a doubt, one of the most interesting and complete collections we have located. The 4 strip rollers, 3 taschenwerk coin presses and 3 blank cutters are stored in a small room with crucibles and other items. This room is not on the visitors circuit. Also in storage are several interesting dies, such as the taschenwerk die below which reveals secrets of its construction, and a die from 1590 made to strike coins with a ring collar.

The municipal museum in Worms has three taschenwerk coining presses in its collection. The two shown below are the most interesting, but are not on public display. Both have small plaques attached to them with the inscription - REPPARIRT VON. C. OHLE ZEUG SCHMIT .IN. WORMS 1835 - showing they were still being used in that year when they were repaired.

The Germanisches National Museum has one of the largest screw presses known. The taschenwerk dies dated 1598 are the earliest known and prove that presses like the one below were invented in the 16th century. The collection also has a very uncommon type of roller die, seen below. All of these items are on public display.

This huge screw press dated 1756 is still hidden away from public view, disassembled, in the Marciana Library, which today occupies the building where Venice struck coins until 1870, on the Piazza San Marco.

This screw press dated 1786 is on display at the Industrial Arts Museum in Bologna. The heavy rotating arm sits nearby on the floor. The body of another screw press, dated 1685, is also on display.

The Badisches Landesmuseum, in the city's Castle, has several interesting pieces related to coining, though none are on public display. Below is a vat used for blanching coins after annealing. The blank cutter seen below with detail on right was capable of punching out quite large planchets, while the older and smaller version below was for smaller pieces.

The Castle Museum in Gotha has this interesting screw press in the arched passageway on the outside of the building.

The Castle Museum in Segovia has one of the old bronze screw presses from the Mint which sits below in the valley beside the river. The press was constructed in Seville in 1735 and had seen many years of use before it was brought to Segovia after 1771. The press is on display in the armory secction of the museum with no information panel.

This screw press was used in the Pamplona Mint until 1833. It is on display in the Museum of Navarra.

The Mint Museum in Stolberg is in the old mint building. The drawbench and the edge milling machine dated 1763 below, as well as other old machines and new working copies used to strike souvenier pieces, are on display.

The National Bank of Slovakia’s Coin and Medal Museum in Kremnica has one machine, a counterweighted taschenwerk press from the mid 17th century, as well as some dies used in this type of press.

The old Mint in Munich today houses government offices (Bayerische Landesamt für Denkmalpflege). Nevertheless, in the large staircase connecting the three floors of the building, a balance scale from the mint can still be seen.

The Mint Museum in Madrid has 28 roller dies in its collection. Many of these dies, as well as coining machines, are on display in the permanent exposition. No taschenwerk machines or dies are known to exist in Spain, since they were never oficially used at any of the Spanish mints.

Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Parma www.archeobo.arti.beniculturali.it/Parma

This museum has 15 roller dies in its collection, as well as many taschenwerk dies, several edge-milling dies and other odd and curious types of dies. None of this material is on display in the muesum.

This museum has a spectacular collection of 20 roller dies dated from 1572 to 1576, though it is not on display in the expositions.

Also in storage and out of view are these two 18th century rolling mills, each showing the date of their construction (1764 and 1785).

This museum has a collection of 7 miniature minting machines from the 18th century. Each of these machines are different from the ones shown below from Weringerode.

A similar collection of miniature coining machines. These were probably used as demonstration models by technicians who built and sold this type of machinery.

This minting scene from 1624 is depicted on a stained glass window in the collection at the Rosgarten Museum.

The National Archive at Simancas (Valladolid) has drawings of minting machines from the 18th century. These show a machine for cleaning coins and horse-driven laminating mills for rolling strip.

The National Bank of Hungary building in Budapest has intricately carved minting scenes on its exterrior facade.

The COINING TECHNOLOGY HERITAGE project is also interested in locating and photographing old minting houses. We estimate that there are probably around 150 historic mint factories still standing around Europe. These buildings, typically used as museums or offices, have never before been catalogued together in one comprehensive study. Our aim is to reunite these little known buildings with the technology used in them to strike coins, in one comprehensive study.