Royal Mint Research Articles

Novac od nikla iz 1925. godine

The Minister of Finance, Dr Milan Stojadinovic, signed a contract on the production and delivery of 1/2-, 1- and 2-dinar nickel coins on 30 December 1924. The French Minting Association from Paris undertook the delivery of these coins with a nominal value of 200 million dinars and a weight of 1000 tonnes, together with their partner, the Belgian Royal Mint from Brussels. Half of these coins were minted in France, while the rest is assumed to have been minted in Brussels or Belgrade. On 5 September 1925, the National Bank released all three denominations in batches, as they arrived from the mint. That year, in nominal terms, that amounted to 92,765,850 dinars and in 1926 to 71,846,450 dinars. There were more of these coins amounting to 35,387,700 dinars in the treasuries of the National Bank, serving as a depot of the Ministry of Finance. The 2-dinar and 1/2-dinar coins were being withdrawn from circulation from 16 August 1939 to 16 August 1940, and the 1-dinar coins were being withdrawn from 20 October 1939 to 20 April 1940.

La fuerza de la ley y el asilo de la costumbre. Un proceso por fraudes y abusos en la Real Casa de Moneda de México

El artículo tiene como asunto una acusación de fraude iniciada en 1729 en contra de los oficiales de la Real Casa de Moneda de México y los mayores comerciantes de plata del virreinato, cuyo desarrollo se prolongó más de diez años y provocó una grave crisis en la mayor ceca del Imperio. Los sucesos permiten conocer situaciones institucionales y procesos industriales que normalmente no son mencionados en la documentación, comprender el papel dominante que habían llegado a tener los mercaderes, así como comentar el sentido del proceso judicial y de las reformas implantadas por la Corona en las relaciones con sus súbditos indianos.

Royal Mint fails to win gold as SOVEREIGN trade mark falls short

Royal Mint fails to win gold as SOVEREIGN trade mark falls short

The Other Side of the Coin: Subsurface Deposits at the Former Royal Melbourne Mint

The Melbourne branch of the Royal Mint officially opened in 1872. Built on a site that had previously accommodated Melbourne’s original Exhibition Hall, the complex comprised the extant Administration Building and flanking Guardhouses and substantial “operative departments” to the rear. The latter were demolished in the early 1970s but recent investigations have revealed that substantial remains survive. This paper discusses our new appreciation of the Mint’s archaeology – one of an increasing number of Melbourne archaeological sites where subsurface deposits are supplementing our knowledge of places long acknowledged for the importance of their built heritage. The remains reveal important evidence relating to the minting process and responses to industrial urban air pollution in the nineteenth century.

Counterfeit Coins and the Geometric Distribution: A Note

Currency debasement has been practiced since time immemorial. Such abuse took many forms, ranging from the alloying of gold and silver with other base metals by corrupt heads of state to the filing or clipping of coins by petty criminals. During the period 1285 to 1490, for example, the silver currency of France was debased 123 times and its gold currency 64 times [1]. Today, coins are no longer minted from precious metals, except for a limited number of collectors’/investors’ pieces, but they are still being counterfeited. An interesting case in point is the British £1 coin. The Royal Mint estimates that 1 in 30 of these coins is a fake1. The problem is so acute that, in 2017, a more complex design and metallic composition will be officially introduced to counteract the fraudster.

‘That Alien, New-fangled, Thick, Intractable Dodecagon’: The Design and Introduction of the 1937 British Threepenny Coin

This article investigates the origins of the British twelve-sided threepenny coin, which entered general circulation in 1937. Having examined the arguments for the coin’s introduction, the article outlines the factors influencing the processes which led to the design of Britain’s first non-circular coin, and considers attitudes both inside and outside the Royal Mint concerning the rival merits of tradition and modernity as they pertained to the British coinage. The article also analyses the dodecagonal threepenny’s position in relation to Edward VIII’s brief reign and George VI’s unexpected accession to the British throne. Finally, the methods used by the Royal Mint both to increase the circulation of this most unusual of coins, and to foster public affection for it, are also explored. Unpopular at the time of its introduction, the coin took several years to gain widespread popular acceptance, coming into its own only during the penny shortage of the Second World War. Whilst the paper focuses on the dodecagonal threepenny its conclusions might be used to think more widely about how people think and feel about money as a physical object, and as an aspect of material and national culture.

Портретные изображения Шекспира в виртуальной шекспиросфере

<p>В статье «шекспировская индустрия» рассматривается как часть «шекспиросферы», широко представленная в изобразительном искусстве, распространившаяся в других сферах культуры, тиражируемая на разных носителях. Автор отмечает новые направления развития «шекспировской индустрии».</p><p>Представлена краткая история визуальных образов, связанных с личностью Шекспира и его творчеством (единственная прижизненная иллюстрация, два признанных подлинными портрета Шекспира XVII в., другие портреты, на которых, по мнению некоторых исследователей, возможно, изображен драматург, а также очевидные псевдоизображения. Последние, как считает автор, являются порождением «шекспировской индустрии».</p><p>В качестве одного из наиболее показательных примеров использования шекспировских образов в нумизматике в статье рассматриваются три новые монеты с изображением черепа Йорика с розой, короны на мече и шутовского колпака со скипетром, которые в начале 2016 г. Королевский монетный двор выпустил в обращение в честь 400-й годовщины со дня смерти Шекспира. Все многочисленные примеры изображения Шекспира и его героев на монетах, памятных медалях, почтовых марках и т. п. нуждаются в специальном исследовании и систематизации при помощи новых информационных технологий.</p>

Brochure of the 18th century on the Journey of Peter the Great to Paris and its Author

The article is devoted to an obscure Russian brochure of the 18th century, containing a chronicle of the journey of Peter the Great to Paris in 1717. Instead of the title page that anonymous edition had a description of a medal minted at the Royal Mint in the presence of the Tsar. The peculiar feature of chronicle narration of the visit is that the events of May, 1717 were described briefly with errors; however, June events were covered in more details. The author ascertained that the text of the brochure was almost completely borrowed from a book by J. Rousset de Missy “Notes on the Reign of Peter the Great” which was published in Holland in French language after Peter the Great death. The author of the book, in turn, borrowed the information from the Paris newspaper “Le Nouveau Mercure”. In several cases the Russian publisher supplemented the story on the journey with the material, quite similar to literary fiction. The author of the brochure was Andrey Andreevich Nartov (1737-1813), a well-known writer, statesman and public person in Catherine’s time. He was also the author of a collection of historical anecdotes under the title “Memorable Narrations and Speeches of Peter the Great”. Both works by Nartov were made as compilations from European sources, added by the author’s fiction.

El impacto local de una producción global. La Real Casa de Moneda de México y sus proveedores, 1732-1821

<p class="Standard">Este artículo aborda el efecto de "derrama" de la Real Casa de Moneda en la capital de Nueva España, en razón de la construcción de instalaciones, adquisición de maquinaria y compra de insumos tales como combustible, animales de tiro y minerales no preciosos como el cobre. El autor sostiene que el establecimiento de la administración gubernamental directa, a partir de 1732, implicó la introducción de principios racionales en la contratación y supervisión de proveedores. Finalmente, propone que el estudio del impacto local del gasto público es un tema que podría abrir perspectivas de interés en la historia de la economía de sociedades premodernas.</p>

On parameter estimation for Malaysian gold prices modelling and forecasting

Abstract In developing a time series model, parameter estimation is one of the crucial steps. Common methods of estimation include method of moment (MME), ordinary least square estimation (OLS) and maximum likelihood estimation (MLE). The purpose of the current study is to model and forecast the prices of Malaysian gold called kijang emas using Box-Jenkins methodology. To find the best model, parameter estimates using OLS and MLE were computed. Based on the Akaike information criteria (AIC) and mean absolute percentage error (MAPE), the model estimated with OLS was found to perform better. Keywords : parameter estimation, ordinary least square estimation, maximum likelihood estimation 1 Introduction Kijang Emas is the official Malaysian gold bullion coin minted by the Royal Mint of Malaysia. Kijang emas prices are volatile with huge price swings. Volatility refers to a condition where the conditional variance changes between extremely high and low values. The forecasting of

Antarctic Vignettes VII: The search for S. Tasman- postscript

Tasman Spaulding served as an Able Seaman on the S.Y. Terra Nova on the 1903–1904 voyage to Antarctica. A clerical error that reversed his given and family names meant he never knew of the bronze Polar Medal awarded for his services on the expedition. For the last 108 years the incorrectly named medal has languished in the archives of the Royal Mint in the United Kingdom but has been released for display at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery in Hobart.

Famine, the Black Death, and health in fourteenth-century London

In the first half of the fourteenth century two catastrophes struck the population of Europe: the Great Famine and the Black Death. The latter has been extensively studied, but much less is known about the biological effects of the Great Famine. A large assemblage of skeletal remains from one of the Black Death burial grounds, the Royal Mint cemetery in London, provides a unique opportunity to investigate these effects by analyzing the teeth of individuals who survived the famine but died during the Black Death.

Mobility, mortality, and the middle ages: Identification of migrant individuals in a 14th century black death cemetery population

Mobility and migration patterns of groups and individuals have long been a topic of interest to archaeologists, used for broad explanatory models of cultural change as well as illustrations of historical particularism. The 14th century AD was a tumultuous period of history in Britain, with severely erratic weather patterns, the Great Famine of 1315-1322, the Scottish Wars of Independence, and the Hundred Years' War providing additional migration pressures to the ordinary economic issues drawing individuals to their capital under more stable conditions. East Smithfield Black Death Cemetery (Royal Mint) had a documented use period of only 2 years (AD 1348-1350), providing a precise historical context (∼50 years) for data. Adults (n = 30) from the East Smithfield site were sampled for strontium and oxygen stable isotope analyses of tooth enamel. Five individuals were demonstrated to be statistical outliers through the combined strontium and oxygen isotope data. Potential origins for migrants ranged from London's surrounding hinterlands to distant portions of northern and western Britain. Historic food sourcing practices for London were found to be an important factor for consideration in a broader than expected (87) Sr/(86) Sr range reflected in a comparison of enamel samples from three London datasets. The pooled dataset demonstrated a high level of consistency between site data, divergent from the geologically predicted range. We argue that this supports the premise that isotope data in human populations must be approached as a complex interaction between behavior and environment and thus should be interpreted cautiously with the aid of alternate lines of evidence.

Bringing castles to life

Primary Teacher UpdateVol. 2012, No. 14 History Cross-CurricularBringing castles to lifeJohn DavisJohn DavisSearch for more papers by this authorJohn DavisPublished Online:29 Sep 2013https://doi.org/10.12968/prtu.2012.1.14.23AboutSectionsView articleView Full TextPDF/EPUB ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack CitationsPermissions ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InEmail View article FiguresReferencesRelatedDetails 1 November 2012Volume 2012Issue 14ISSN (print): 2047-8917ISSN (online): 2052-4609 Metrics History Published online 29 September 2013 Published in print 1 November 2012 Information© MA Education LimitedPDF download

El gran robo a la Real Casa de Moneda de México. La delincuencia y los límites de la justicia en la ciudad de México

El artículo tiene como asunto un cuantioso robo de plata ocurrido en 1739 en la Real Casa de Moneda de México. Aparte su interés en sí, el caso abre perspectivas reveladoras sobre los logros, limitaciones y ambigüedades en la impartición de justicia, y la relativa facilidad con que los delincuentes podían escapar o bien refugiarse en sagrado. Asimismo, el trabajo examina los antecedentes, residencia, etnicidad y actitudes del grupo criminal, y concluye que la combinación de resentimiento social, la ausencia de respeto hacia el orden social y las urgencias de la vida cotidiana podían llevar a muchos miembros de la plebe urbana hacia la delincuencia ocasional o, como en este caso, hacia crímenes mayores.

Student attitudes to socially responsible business: a case study of mine workers in Chile

PurposeGiven the proliferation of United Kingdom (UK) media headlines around the recent financial meltdown and the subsequent allocation of blame to government, bankers, the Bank of England and the Financial Services Authority, it is clear that there is disquiet amongst the public as to how the crisis has been handled. Business schools, both in the UK and worldwide, have been accused of failing to address issues of governance in their curricula. Can the assumption be made that current curricula will have prepared students to evaluate this key concept critically? This paper seeks to address these issues.Design/methodology/approachTaking a case study approach, this work sets out to explore the attitudes of a cohort of 43 final‐year undergraduate students studying in a UK business school. It focuses on an analysis of their written work on the sourcing of copper from Chile and its procurement by the UK Royal Mint for coinage.FindingsThe findings indicate that students valued the inclusion of corporate social responsibility in its widest context, and would welcome earlier inclusion within their curricula.Originality/valueThis is a timely point in their academic studies, as the students are preparing for study at Master's level or for the job market. The coursework required research into the production process of raw material at the copper mines in Chile, as well as the ethical decision‐making process of a UK governmental agency. Although this is a small‐scale study, it does offer some interesting insights into student perspectives. The paper concludes with recommendations for future curriculum development.

The Master of the Royal Mint: How Much Money did Isaac Newton Save Britain?

Summary From the extant statistical data, the paper reconstructs several episodes in the history of the Royal Mint during Isaac Newton’s tenure. We discuss four types of uncertainty that are embedded in the production of coins, extending Stephen Stigler’s work in several directions. The jury verdicts in trials of the pyx for 1696–1727 allow judgement on the impartiality of the jury at the trials. The verdicts, together with several remarks by Newton in his correspondence with the Treasury, allow us to estimate the standard deviation σ in weights of individual guineas coined before and during Newton’s Mastership. This parameter, in turn, permits us to estimate the amount of money that Newton saved Britain after he put a stop to the illegal practice by goldsmiths and bankers of culling heavy guineas from circulation and recoining them to their advantage; a conservative estimate of savings to the Crown is £41510, and possibly three times as much. The procedure by which Newton probably improved coinage gives historical insight on how important statistical notions—standard deviation and sampling—came to the forefront in practical matters: the former as a measure of variation of weights of coins, and the latter as a test of several coins to evaluate the quality of the entire population. Newton can be credited with the formal introduction of testing a small sample of coins, a pound in weight, in the trials of the pyx from 1707 onwards, effectively reducing the size of admissible error. Even Newton’s ‘cooling law’ could have been contrived for the purpose of reducing variation in the weight of coins during initial stages of the minting process. Three open questions are posed in the conclusion.

Free coinage for gold and silver –Then and now

Some people think that one of the fundamental institutions of the 19 th century should be restored; we singled out Great Britain as the great leader embracing this institution. This institution was the free minting of gold practiced by Great Britain in its heyday of growth, world economic and financial power. Under this system, any owner of gold bullion could take his bullion to the Royal Mint and have it minted into coins containing exactly the same amount of gold. This was done at no cost to the owner of bullion as a government service to the economy. Thus, the owner of gold bullion converted his bullion directly into money which could be saved, invested or spent at will. The new gold was turned into money and increased the money supply because gold was money. Another idea was been floated, regarding doing the same with silver: “Opening the Mint to Silver” is the same idea as free coinage of gold, outlined earlier, but applied to silver. Some people thought that re-instituting this practice of centuries prior to the 1800’s, which was indeed entirely wholesome and beneficial in its time, would produce the same wonderful results today; supposedly, the restoration of this institution would restore stability, growth savings and true and lasting prosperity.

Robert Staes, goudsmid van de aartshertogen Albert en Isabella en meester-generaal van de munt in de Nederlanden (†1612)

Robert Staes was a leading goldsmith in Brussels in the last quarter of the sixteenth and first quarter of the seventeenth century. In 1594 he supplied jewels.as court goldsmith to Archduke Ernest of Austria, and in 1595 he was paid for making the urn for the archduke s heart. He entered the service of Archdukes Albert and Isabella and remained their court goldsmith until his death in 1611. It was a position that brought him many and varied commissions, among other things for gold chains with which his patrons honoured deserving individuals. A number of Brussels goldsmiths earned their spurs in his workshop. Staes, who was also an art dealer, was appointed Master-General of the Royal Mint in the Netherlands in 1602, but because of his duties at court he was allowed to appoint a substitute mint master to assist him.

The process of blanching in french mints (15th-16th centuries): archeometrical and experimental approach

In the late nineties, excavations in La Rochelle (France) have discovered the remains of a royal mint of the sixteenth century. This discovery enabled the collection of artefacts directly related to the manufacture of coins. The exceptional corpus gathered is the subject of a study of the chaine operatoire of coining in the medieval time. Special attention is paid to an operation which takes place before the strike: the blanching of blanks. Well documented in ancient times, the samples from La Rochelle offer the opportunity to study this process during the medieval period and in a royal mint. In addition, thanks to reconstitution experiments, it is possible to define a reaction mechanism that helps to understand our historical observations.