The Mint: A History of the London Mint from A.D. 287 to 1948

by John Craig

Overview

For an august and important institution of the realm, whose activities concern every citizen so constantly and continuously, is it not surprising how little every citizen knows of the London Mint in detail? In this 1953 book its story up until the 1950s is told with unimpeachable authority by Sir John Craig, former Deputy Master and Comptroller of the Royal Mint and Engraver of the King's Seals. Any reader may follow the chronology of the Mint, from the many crude workshops of the early days to the central, nationally recognised organisation with statutory safeguards that it has become. Here they may read of those who influenced the growth and policy of the Mint, watch the development of monetary theory, as well as the changes in technical processes of coin making, and the gradual evolution of statutory control. The whole work is illustrated from the archives of the Mint.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521170772
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	10/27/2011
Edition description:	Reissue
Pages:	498
Product dimensions:	5.98(w) x 9.02(h) x 1.10(d)

Table of Contents

List of illustrations; Table of sovereigns; Introduction; 1. Early mints; 2. Concentration in London; 3. Shaping the tower mint; 4. The return of gold; 5. End of the Middle Ages; 6. Renaissance and debasement; 7. Elizabeth I; 8. Court and commonwealth; 9. Mechanization of the mint; 10. Guineas and coppers; 11. The Great Silver Recoinage; 12. Isaac Newton; 13. The age of deputies; 14. Later eighteenth-century coinage; 15. Under the committee on coin; 16. William Wellesley Pole; 17. Cabinet masters; 18. Two masters of science; 19. Growth of the modern mint; 20. Modern British coinage; 21. Ireland; 22. Other external coinages; 23. Trial of the Pyx; The appendices; Bibliography; Subject index; Index of the persons, with their mint connections.