Early Milled Mintages by Weight

[Chris Perkins 228]

This is what we've all been waiting for, it's a scan of two pages from a book kinding provided by another member

It shows by weight and the face value, how many coins were minted each year.

I have passworded the directory, which is here:

http://www.predecimal.com/mintages/

If you want to see the 2 pages you'll have to ask me, Eliza or Sylvester for the username and password. I certainly don't mind if you email me, but to contact the other two you'll have to use the Personal messenger on this forum.

Enjoy!

[Sylvester 15]

Right i've just converted all those weights for the silver between 1674-1684 to grams...

Now comes the tricky guess work bit!

I'll try dividing the total mintage in £s so that it's roughly equal between all denominations from Crowns down to maundy pennies.

Then i'll see if the numbers i come to when added up are near the average weight for that year.

If not then it's back to the drawing board.

Syl.

[Sylvester 15]

Right this is a rough estimate for silver coined in 1674;

(Note that weights of the coins vary as much from say 14.8 grams to 15.3 grams with halfcrowns). Based on the average weight of each silver denomination i get these as the following (all weights in grams for calculator simplicity); CR=30g, HC=15g, SH=5.8g, 6D=3g, 4D=2g, 3D=1.5g, 2D=1g and 1D's = 0.5g...

(this makes the following figures anything up to 30,000 grams out at the most, if those figures above are stuck to, but giving for variance in weight it could be as little as 25,000 grams out which equates to 833 crowns, or 12500 silver pennies! which is still some way out. Hence why i've put the calculator figure (as i found it out) first followed by a higher figure of what it could potentially realistically have been)

Very broad figures are;

1674 CR = 15, 944 - 16,000

HC = 31,888 - 32,000

SH = 79,720 - 80,000

6D = 159,440 - 160,000

4D = 239,160 - Lower at 239,000?

3D = 318,880 - 320,000

2D = 478,320 - 480,000

1D = 956,640 - 960,000

Following the latter figures we are still 17,000 grams out, or 567 crowns in weight down.

So add a few hundred crowns on and a few hundred half crowns on and we are getting there.

For crowns 1674 is a rare year.

It is perhaps the case that the maundy stuff has lower mintages. Though not necessarily the same mintage from 4d to 1d as in this period 2d-4d coins were issued for circulation. Only the penny was reserved for maundy purposes.

Quite what they do with 960,000 of them though?

perhaps the mintage of these could be as low as 700,000, which equates to 4333 extra crowns or double that figure in half crowns.

So revised figures could be;

CR = 17,000

HC = 40,000

SH = 80,000

6D = 160,000

4D = 240,000

3D = 320,000

2D = 480,000

1D = 700,000

TOTAL MINTAGE IN GRAMS = 3,844,000

Which is much nearer to the 3,839,283g that i initially got.

So no matter how it breaks down the mintage figures are still small when compared to the post 1816 stuff.

Syl.

Other dates to follow...

[Sylvester 15]

Right Chris... Eliza and who ever else is listening;

we have one small problem with these figures, that of the Maundy Money...

I'm still very sceptical that they'd mint anything near 700,000 pennies.

Looking at the post 1816 mintage figures i think i'm right to think this, where most figures usually go no higher than 5,000 on a really good year!

So if i average out the Maundy stuff at about 7,000 pieces per year of each denomination (but i think more may have been minted for the 4, 3 and 2d coins, upto 10,000 as afterall they were for circulation purposes!)

If i can figure out a realistic average figure for the maundy stuff in any year then the rest should follow into place.

If only we could find these weights of all silver minted without the maundy stuff then it might be a whole lot more accurate and simpler.

If you think the silver is hard, the gold coinage is going to be much much harder.

Afterall the guinea went with inflation so the guinea relation to the pound changed year in year out, so figuring out the figures will be very difficult.

Looking at mintage figures for elephant and castle guneas though it appears the majority of coins minted each year tended not to go above 30,000 pieces.

Syl.

[Chris Perkins 228]

I love what you doing!

Keep up the good work.

[Sylvester 15]

This is better Chris/Eliza/etc...

Tell me if you think these figures are a bit more realistic!

1674;

CR = 31,000

HC = 65,000

SH = 160,000

6D = 315,000

4D = 10,000

3D = 10,000

2D = 10,000

1D = 10,000

1675;

CR = 5,500

HC = 10,700

SH = 27,000

6D = 53,000

4D = 10,000

3D = 10,000

2D = 10,000

1D = 10,000

1676;

CR = 320,000

HC = 630,750

SH = 1,580,000

6D = 3,153,000

4D-1D = 10,000 PER DENOM.

1677;

CR = 460,000

HC = 920,000

SH = 2,270,000

6D = 4,525,000

4D-1D = 10,000 PER DENOM.

1678;

CR = 25,000

HC = 50,000

SH = 120,000

6D = 240,000

4D-1D = 10,000 PER DENOM.

1679;

CR = 280,000

HC = 560,000

SH = 1,350,000

6D = 2,700,000

4D-1D = 10,000 PER DENOM.

1680;

CR = 200,000

HC = 360,000

SH = 900,500

6D = 1,801,000

4D-1D = 10,000 PER DENOM.

1681;

CR = 95,000

HC = 200,000

SH = 500,000

6D = 1,000,000

4D-1D = 10,000 PER DENOM.

1682;

CR = 40,000

HC = 78,500

SH = 195,700

6D = 391,000

4D-1D = 10,000 PER DENOM.

1683;

CR = 220,000

HC = 440,000

SH = 1,081,000

6D = 2,160,000

4D-1D = 10,000 PER DENOM.

1684;

CR = 54,000

HC = 107,000

SH = 267,000

6D = 533,000

4D-1D = 10,000 PER DENOM.

And that's it so far...

Only approx but it gives an idea, Maundy figures are very approximate and those shown are probably double, or even quadruple the amount of what they would have been in most years.

Does give some strange results though, the 1674 Crown is much rarer than the 1675 one, (both are rare), although the mintage figures suggest otherwise. If the mintage figures are averagely near accuracy then i guess the 1674 crown was a candidate for a meltdown for later recoinages.

Also note how few sixpences seem to have been minted in 1675, suddenly becomes apparent why the 1676/5 overdates are really the only coins known. (Do they exist without over dates? Looks like they didn't use too many dies in 1675, so there'd probably be surplus dies left over for most of the following year).

Syl.

[Sylvester 15]

Eliza;

Is there any mention in those books of yours of mintage ratios? That is the percentage that is usually minted per denomination.

Bascially i've just been informed that the Spanish minted 8 reale coins and they more often than not made up 57% of the total mintage that year, whilst the other denominations made up a mere 11% for any given year.

[Guest Eliza]

Hi Sylvester!

Ratios? I don't recall ... a lot of anecdotal evidence around, though, such as in the McKay book. Let me see what I can find -- it's not nearly as clear-cut as the mintage-by-weight/value. More like: "In 1662, more Crowns than 6d were minted due to & c & c." Let me see what I can find.

You're doing GREAT work. And a thousand Thank-Yous to Chris for ingeniously providing this discussion forum in the first place!

--E.

[Sylvester 15]

More like: "In 1662, more Crowns than 6d were minted due to & c & c." Let me see what I can find.

--E.

That's just the kind of thing we need! I need to know years in which more crowns or whatnot were minted than other denominations. I've taken the basic approach of having fewer minted of the upper denominations per say, and more of the lower denominations minted. But if it turns out that the bigger denominations were always minted in bigger numbers then my figures are waaaaay out!

But it's a start!!!

Syl.