Royal mint museum facebook page

[craigy 362]

The royal mint museum face book page has been posting some stunning images of coin related stuff of late on there facebook page, thought o would share some of these amazing artifacts 

[craigy 362]

[craigy 362]

[craigy 362]

[craigy 362]

[craigy 362]

[craigy 362]

[craigy 362]

collar for the una and the lion 5 pounds 

[rpeddie 119]

fantastic, love this sort of stuff.

anyone know or have a record of any dies or matrices ever coming to the market? 

I know its a big no no for these to leave the mint but i've seen some other countries coin dies for sale and wonder if there are a few British ones out there

[Peckris 579]

1 minute ago, rpeddie said:

anyone know or have a record of any dies or matrices ever coming to the market? 

I know its a big no no for these to leave the mint but i've seen some other countries coin dies for sale and wonder if there are a few British ones out there

The most famous example is the Taylor restrikes of George III currency and pattern pieces following his purchase of a bulk lot of dies from Boulton's Soho Mint in the later 19th Century. Many of them were rusted so he spent some time sanding away blemishes before producing a limited series of restrikes "for collectors" (none of the items he produced were still legal tender of course). Many of these restrikes can be identified because of previous unknown obverse / reverse combinations and not having the proper edge collar in some cases. Taylor's work is recorded in CW Peck's book.

[rpeddie 119]

Great! thanks for the information.

Would these dies still be in private hands or destroyed during re strike process?

[Peckris 579]

3 minutes ago, rpeddie said:

Great! thanks for the information.

Would these dies still be in private hands or destroyed during re strike process?

I'm not sure what the ultimate fate of the Taylor dies was?

[Rob 3,152]

Some of Boulton & Watt's original dies were as said acquired by Taylor in 1848. Boulton's grandson, Matthew Piers Watt Boulton had a large stake in the restrikes as indicated by appendix 10e in Peck (p.616). He outlived Taylor by a good 20 years plus. According to Henry, he stated that the dies were destroyed, but it is possible that MPWB retained the odd one after Taylor's death in 1885, as the dies would only be destroyed after 1885 and by Boulton, not Taylor, because up to that point the latter was making restrikes for commercial gain. Unfortunately I don't have a copy of MPWB's sale catalogue from 1912 to check if any were offered then. There were no dies sold by the Watt family at Morton & Eden in 2002. The Boulton family collection was dispersed privately through Tim Millett a few years later, so I don't know if any were within this collection.

[craigy 362]

this is the most interesting one for me, the royal mint museum say " There are many instances of artists actually placing their own features on the faces of subjects in a painting or sculpture and if a comparison is made between the portrait punch illustrated here of the St George from the 1935 Silver Jubilee crown and the photograph of the artist Percy Metcalfe it is possible, as was known at the time, to discern more than a passing resemblance. The clipped hair, the angular profile and the shape of the neck all suggest Metcalfe was doing more than creating a powerfully modern depiction of St George and the dragon, he was in addition subtly and wryly finding a place for himself on the British coinag"

[rpeddie 119]

Again thanks for the great information Rob, as always exactly what I was looking for

As for normal currency issues there is definitely no way that these would escape the mint?

Reason for asking 1

Reason for asking 2

[bagerap 706]

Yes, U.S. dies and hubs, suitably defaced are, are often seen for sale.

[copper123 1,510]

Love the 1937 crown

[ozjohn 662]

3 hours ago, rpeddie said:

fantastic, love this sort of stuff.

anyone know or have a record of any dies or matrices ever coming to the market? 

I know its a big no no for these to leave the mint but i've seen some other countries coin dies for sale and wonder if there are a few British ones out there

A couple of years ago I was in Fremantle WA and visited a coin shop called Sterling & Currency where I was shown some British coin dies featuring KG VI. I am not sure if they were made in Australia or imported from the UK. From memory I think they were crown dies and assuming they were used here in Australia they would have been used for the 1937/38 crown coins. While I was there I purchased a stunning UNC 1904 halfcrown.

[1949threepence 3,367]

Some amazing stuff above. Thanks for the images, craigy.

[Ukstu 445]

Great share ! Thanks for posting it , i am not on Facebook so never seen these before.  

[terrysoldpennies 765]

Some of you my not have seen this Reverse.   Its the Mints example of a pattern reverse, its mono faced and was made for the reverse of the Edward viii penny, but was rejected, probably because the Battleship was considered to Imperial , I only Know of one example in a private collection.     Terry