The Infamous ‘Folsom Prison Nickel’
What follows is the text of an article which appeared in San Francisco’s The Call newspaper, March 10, 1898.
Outside of California residents, most of the rest of the world was to first hear the name Folsom Prison in the 1955 hit song “Folsom Prison Blues” by Johnny Cash. In 1968, Johnny Cash performed live at the prison to the delight of inmates and jailers.
BOGUS MONEY IS MADE RIGHT IN FOLSOM PRISON
Guards Surprise Convicts Busily Engaged in Coining Nickels in the Engine-Room.
SACRAMENTO, March 10.
A counterfeiter’s layout has been discovered at Folsom within the State prison walls, the last spot on earth where one would look for the illegal minting of Uncle Sam’s coin. If there is a place in the broad universe where neither the opportunity nor demand of money arises it is within the walls of the State prison; at least such is the general impression of people who are without experience with criminals. To those who have had dealings with me sentenced to long terms of imprisonment for the commission of crime it is known that there is no passion or desire stronger than the predilection of a prisoner to carry upon his person some small amount of money. On the part of many it becomes a mania, and they will resort to all sorts of devices and any kind of a subterfuge to withhold a few pieces of coin from the Warden upon entering the prison. Secretary Smith, in speaking of this peculiarity on the part of prisoners, once said to The Call correspondent:
“You would be surprised to know what difficulty we have in securing money from the prisoners who are brought here. No second termer ever comes without an endeavor to conceal upon his person some bit of money. I have known them to have five-dollar pieces covered with cloth and sewed upon their vests as buttons. They conceal money in their hair and in their ears, and we are not always successful in obtaining possession of it. Not long ago I brought $75 worth of books for our library with money found around the prison grounds — money that had been hidden by convicts or carried in, notwithstanding the precaution we take to relieve all the prisoners of every cent they have upon their person when entering for registration .”
But while it may not be astonishing to find this overwhelming desire on the part of convicts to conceal their spare change, there is probably no prison in the United States where the criminals successfully operated and circulated bogus coin, manufactured within the prison walls under the very eyes of the officers. For some time past Officer Charles Jally. whose station is at the rock crushing plant, has had his suspicions aroused by the peculiar conduct of some at the prisoners under his control At first he thought these whisperings and signals were carried on in the planning of some scheme to smuggle in opium. This is a very common matter at the prison, and only last week Guard Lamphry burned ten pounds of the drug which had been surreptitiously brought within the confines. After three or four days of watching Jally informed Superintendent Taylor, and both became convinced that some deeper plot was being laid, and they became more determined than ever to ascertain the cause of so much suppressed excitement among the convicts.
Yesterday they were rewarded. Some time during the morning Jally informed Taylor that there was something wrong in the engine room. Taylor gathered about him Guards Jally and Silak. and the three made a rush for the engine room. Convicts Cayne(sic) and Brown were encountered, and as the officers rushed in both convicts leaped through a window in the engine room and ran to the tank of the canal, which was within a short distance of the engine house. One of the guards followed them, while the others proceeded to Inspect the engine room.
As the convicts reached the edge of the canal there was a splash of muddy water. The crucible and dies they had used were forever beyond the possession of those in pursuit. The quick sands and murky waters of the American River were safe custodians of their guilt.
There were other evidences, however, and they consisted of a pile of nickels which were captured by the guard who entered the engine room. These nickels were splendid specimens of workmanship. The material out of which they were made consisted of babbiting, which is a white soft metal which forms the inside rim of the axle box found on a locomotive. This substance was taken from the engine which runs through the prison grounds and hauls the trains of crushed rock which are shipped from the prison rock crusher.
The nickels are seemingly as perfect and complete as any ever made by Uncle Sam. Many of them have been given circulation and The Call correspondent found no difficulty in procuring one of them in the town of Folsom.
How the dies and crucibles were ever made will perhaps remain a mystery. Plaster of parts molds were used, and in the engine room were found many fragments of this material.
Captain Murphy was rather reticent when asked about the affair.
“It amounts to nothing,” the captain said, “and if it did I would not talk about it in the absence of the warden. I do not deem it to be best for the prison discipline to take such matters up and give them undue publicity in the papers.”
When shown one of the spurious coins the captain admitted that he had seen them, but beyond the admission he preferred to say nothing.
It is not supposed that Cayne and Brown are the prisoners who made the molds, but as there are several counterfeiters doing time in Folsom, it is probable that the devices used were made by some of them, and the coining of the counterfeit left to Cayne and Brown.
A very extensive traffic has for a long time been going on among the prisoners, and the officers have been at a loss to know where the convicts obtained the money which had been so freely circulated. The cigarette paper among the convicts is a very choice article, and they will give almost anything: to obtain a package of it. On the other hand, there has been a great quantity of opium smuggled in lately, and there is no doubt that these coins ; were being made for the purpose of paying those who sent it in from the outside, as well as exchanging them for cigarette papers.
It is a matter of some regret that the entire layout was not captured, as it no doubt would have given the officers some clew (sic) as to the means employed in obtaining it. Some of the officers think that the dies were smuggled in from the outside, while others hold that the entire apparatus was made within the prison walls. As there are many tools and furnaces available around the quarries, it is very probable that the latter theory is the correct one.
The ladle used appeared similar to those used around assaying establishments, while the crucible was crude in form, and appeared as though it had been melted into shape from railroad couplings.
There are many cars arriving every day in the yard, and it is from these that the prisoners are supplied with opium from the outside. The most wonderful devices are employed in this prohibited traffic. Opium has been found in the axle boxes of the cars, or fastened to the inside of a brake beam; in fact there is no place about a flat car that has not been used in concealing the drug.
The impression prevails among the officers that it was the intention of the convicts to coin a great quantity of nickels and then ship them out on the freight cars, where their friends on the outside could receive them in exchange for opium.
It is probable that nothing but nickels were attempted to be made for the reason that the convicts could not obtain the metal necessary to manufacture silver coins.
An 1898 Liberty “V” Nickel
The Treasure from the SS City of Cairo
In 2013, Deep Ocean Search Ltd, a British-led team, successfully retrieved £34 million of silver coins from a shipwreck in the South Atlantic ocean. Working at a depth of 3.2 miles, the operation set the world record for the deepest salvage of cargo in history. When the news was made public in 2015, it was widely reported that the recovered coins had all been melted down. But in reality, a small number were saved from the melting-pot. Collectors now have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to own treasure from this record-breaking operation and hold history in their hands.
On a cold November evening in 1942, the SS City of Cairo, a British passenger steamship travelling from India to the UK, was torpedoed and sunk by a German U-Boat in the middle of the South Atlantic. At the time of her sinking, few people knew that she was carrying top-secret cargo. A huge consignment of silver coins, which had circulated for decades through British India, was being transported to Britain to be melted down for their high silver content.
As men, women and children struggled in the water, the U-boat that had sunk them surfaced alongside them. Commander Karl-Frederich Merten informed them that the nearest land was the small island of Saint Helena, 480 miles to the north-northeast. Privately, he considered their chances of reaching land or being rescued at sea to be almost zero, and U-boats were forbidden from attempting to rescue civilians on enemy ships. Merten concluded the conversation by saying, “Goodnight. Sorry for sinking you”, and then sailed away into the night.
With no distress signal having reached the mainland, meagre rations and only one sextant to navigate their course, the prospects for the 296 survivors huddled together in six damaged and overcrowded lifeboats looked bleak. Yet astonishingly, people were rescued from all six lifeboats. Four lifeboats were picked up after spending thirteen days in the shark-infested waters. Sadly, rescue came too late for many in the two remaining boats. A German vessel picked up three survivors after 36 days, though one later died of her injuries. The last lifeboat remained at sea for 52 days before it was spotted off the coast of Brazil. By that time, only two occupants were still alive.
Of the 302 people who sailed on the last voyage, six were lost on the night of the sinking. Sadly, 93 more would perish in the lifeboats as they waited for rescue, and a further eight would die shortly after being rescued. Against all expectations, 195 men, women and children survived their ordeal and made it safely back onto dry land.
For nearly seventy years, the wreck of the SS City of Cairo and her top secret cargo lay undisturbed on the ocean floor. Then, in November 2011, a company called Deep Ocean Search Ltd began searching for the ship, having been authorised by the UK Ministry of Transport to recover the silver coins on board.
The plan to search for the ship and salvage her lost treasure was the brainchild of deep-sea salvage pioneer John Kingsford, who set up the company. In 1984, he read an account of the sinking by one of the survivors, the ship’s surgeon, Dr Douglas Quantrill, who described seeing boxes of silver coins after the torpedo had blown off the hatches in hold number four.
Secret government papers confirmed that the ship had been carrying silver on her last voyage. A despatch from Embarkation Bombay to the War Office established that she left Bombay (now Mumbai) with 2,182 boxes of silver coins weighing 122 tonnes. DOS researchers scoured key documents about the sinking as they became publicly available. Military records from both sides provided details of how the ship had sunk and the likely location of the wreck.
The scale of the challenge facing the team was formidable. The ship’s last recorded position was about 1,000 miles off the coast of West Africa, where the weather, swell, and currents are extremely changeable. Furthermore, there were contradictions between the last known positions of the ship given by the U-boat and the ship’s officers. It meant that the team, which included twenty French oceanographers, would have to search an area of the ocean floor that was around twice the size of London.
A salvage operation at a depth of over five kilometres had never been successfully accomplished before. Nonetheless, Kingsford believed it was possible and signed a contract with the British Government authorising him to search and retrieve the lost silver treasure.
Deep Ocean Search took the survey and salvage vessel John Lethbridge, equipped with sonar and robotics, to the target area and began scanning the seabed for signs of the wreck. On board was a remotely operated underwater vehicle (ROV) capable of working in extreme depths and 11,000 meters of sonar cable which tethered it to the ship. It was slow and laborious work. The ocean floor was littered with rocks and canyons, and the team watched the monitor screen intently as the ROV sent back video. It would take a highly experienced eye to spot a man-made object amongst all the naturally occurring features.
After several weeks of scanning, the team identified a small target that didn’t appear to be a natural occurrence. Kingsford was initially unconvinced that it was the SS City of Cairo because it didn’t correspond to his expectations of how the wreck should look. However, he trusted his team’s view that the seabed looked disturbed, and the curious anomaly was deemed worthy of further investigation. Closer inspection revealed that it was indeed a shipwreck that had broken into two parts and was partially buried in the silt and mud on the ocean floor. But was this the ship they were looking for?
Images of the wreck site revealed no visible name or builder’s plaque to identify it. So, the team had to analyse photographs and plans of the SS City of Cairo to determine that they had found their target. Eventually, after six frustrating hours, they were able to make a positive identification using the ship’s porthole formation. Then, to confirm their discovery, they saw silver rupees struck with the portraits of British monarchs in hold number four, where they had laid undisturbed for 69 years.
The ship had come to rest at a depth of 5,150 metres (nearly 17,000 feet) which meant that any successful recovery of coins from the site would enter the record books as the deepest salvage of cargo from a shipwreck. By comparison, the RMS Titanic lies at a depth of 3,800 metres (12,500 feet).
Working remotely 3.2 miles beneath the waterline, Kingsford’s team overcame huge technical and logistical challenges to bring almost 100 tons of the silver coins to the surface. The operation took eight months, finally reaching completion in September 2013. Before leaving the wreck for the last time, the ROV left a plaque honouring those who had died. It read,
“We came here with respect.”
The recovered coins worth £34 million were handed over to the UK Treasury as per their contracted agreement, and Deep Ocean Search received a share of the sale. When the British authorities permitted the news to be made public in 2015, it was widely reported that all of the silver rupees had been melted down.
However, that wasn’t entirely accurate.
When the momentous news broke that silver rupees had been recovered from the SS City of Cairo wreck, the Samlerhuset Group began a six-year quest of their own to rescue some of the coins for collectors before they all went into the melting pot. Realising that their customers would welcome the opportunity to own treasure recovered from the deepest cargo salvage in history, the European coin company approached Deep Ocean Search and asked to purchase a batch of the coins.
Their persistence eventually paid off. Almost 22,000 Indian rupees from the record-breaking salvage operation have now been professionally conserved by industry experts, giving international collectors a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to own these salvaged coins and hold history in their hands.
Speaking about the sale, John Kingsford said,
“It is our wish that the history and amazing story of the SS City of Cairo continues to live on through the silver coins that survived her tremendous ordeal. We are delighted to confirm that the last surviving coins from her treasure have been saved from being smelted and have been professionally restored and made available to collectors worldwide.”
The operation to recover the coins from a depth of over five kilometres will forever stand as a triumph of human engineering, ingenuity, and skill. Furthermore, each salvaged coin from the top-secret cargo provides a tangible connection with the people who used them in British India and who unknowingly travelled with them on the final voyage of the SS City of Cairo.
VIBECE FURSETH BECOMES NORWAY’S FIRST FEMALE MINT MASTER
Vibece Furseth in the Samlerhuset Group is taking on a new role, becoming the first female mint master and CEO of the Norwegian Mint in Kongsberg.
Vibece Furseth will take on the role of CEO and mint master for the Norwegian Mint in March. She has held many important positions in the Samlerhuset Group over the course of 25 years, and currently holds the role of Operations Director in Samlerhuset Norway. Vibece will continue to lead Samlerhuset Norway’s operations department and is part of the company’s management team, while also becoming the mint master in Kongsberg.
She takes over from Ståle Løkken by the end of March.
“The Mint has a first-class team that is in the international league in the field of coin minting, and with commercial insight and in-depth knowledge of the industry, I believe Vibece will be an ideal leader and bring many business opportunities to the Mint in the future,” says founder and chairman of the board of the Samlerhuset Group, Ole Bjørn Fausa.
“We thank Ståle Løkken for his good years at the Mint and wish him good luck with new important tasks at a new, strong Kongsberg enterprise,” he continues.
The Norwegian Mint was established in Kongsberg in 1686 and has had almost 50 mint masters during this time, all of whom have been men. Furseth thus becomes Norway’s first female CEO and mint master for the Norwegian Mint.
“I am taking over a well-run Mint with over 300 years of traditions in Norwegian industrial history, and I look forward to being part of the competence environment that the Mint represents in coin and minting technology. I have broad experience in the industry and am excited to explore new commercial opportunities for the Norwegian Mint,” says incoming CEO, Vibece Furseth.
The Norwegian Mint in Kongsberg is owned by the Samlerhuset group and produces coins and medals, including the official circulation coins in Norway, on behalf of the Norwegian Bank. The Norwegian Mint also produces the Nobel Prize medals annually.
A Million Silver Dollars
The 1962 Seattle World’s Fair offered its ten million visitors many exciting sights. Astronaut John Glenn brought his Friendship 7 space capsule, Elvis Presley even filmed a movie there, and Seattle’s famous Space Needle was built as the fair’s futuristic symbol. However, if you had purchased your ticket and walked on the fairgrounds in the spring of 1962, you would have been treated to a spectacular display which has never been re-created: a wire corn crib holding 1 MILLION gleaming US Silver Dollars!
This incredible display was the result of an unlikely partnership between the Philadelphia Mint and three Washington numismatists. The three convinced a Columbus, Nebraska manufacturing company to build a steel building on the fair site, while two large semi trucks each carried 500,000 silver dollars in mint-sealed bags from Philadelphia all the way across country to Seattle. (Of course, the trucks also carried armed Pinkerton guards, while state troopers and local police provided additional escort.)
To construct the Million Silver Dollars exhibit, 800,000 Morgan silver dollars in mint bags dated 1910-1915 were carefully stacked in the center of the aforementioned corn crib. Then, once the mountain of bags was completed, the final 200,000 Peace dollars were poured in to completely cover the bags. Fair visitors were allowed to pass within just a few feet of this amazing display from the Fair’s opening day, April 21, 1962, until it closed in October. Anywhere from 25,000 – 40,000 visitors passed through the steel building every day to gaze upon this once-in-a-lifetime sight. While most visitors considered themselves lucky to even be close to this treasure, one unsuspecting lady was the luckiest of them all! In June, as the one millionth fair visitor passed through the gates, she was presented with 100 of the silver dollars from the exhibit.
In the fall of 1962, just after the World’s Fair has closed, an ad appeared in a national coin magazine offering actual dollars from this exhibit, in commemorative holders, for $1.95 each. Or, you could purchase up to 5 bags per person for $1500 per bag of 1000.
Oh for a time machine to travel back 48 years, eh?!!
RULE BRITANNIA! Evolution of an Icon
British numismatic historian, Justin Robinson, takes us on a fascinating journey spanning 2000 years as he examines how the powerful symbol of Britannia changed and evolved over the centuries.
Roman Britannia
History does not record the name of the engraver who first depicted Britannia on coins. She appeared for the first time during the reign of Emperor Hadrian (117-138 AD), and is presented as a rather forlorn figure, with one hand resting on her chin as if she is contemplating her fate under Roman occupation. In some coins she appears to be wearing a rainproof, hooded woollen cloak known as a birrus Brittanicus, which was popular amongst native Britons to protect them from the inclement weather. Britannia sits with her foot on a pile of rocks, holding a spear and with a large spiked shield at her side.
Hadrian is, of course, best remembered for building the impressive 73 mile stone wall across the north of England, which ran from coast to coast and marked the northwest frontier of his Empire. Perhaps this is what Britannia is guarding on the coin, ready to repel any invaders who try to breach the defences.
Hadrian’s decision to depict Britain as a female warrior may have been inspired by events that took place in Britain fifty-six years before his reign began. In 60-61 AD, Rome was left reeling from a series of devastating attacks that killed many thousands of their citizens living in this remote outpost of the Empire. The uprising was led by Queen Boudica of the Iceni tribe, who achieved what the Romans had thought impossible and united previously warring Celtic tribes against their common enemy.
Under her command, the Celts fought with a ferocity that took the occupiers completely by surprise and had burned down the thriving cities of Colchester, London and Saint Albans before the Romans could assemble a sufficient number of soldiers to crush their revolt.
During the final battle, it was reported that Queen Boudica drove her war chariot between the tribes shouting encouragement and spurring them on. When all hope of victory was lost, legend has it that she took poison rather than be captured. Her inspirational leadership, daring to challenge the might of the Emperor and refusal to take prisoners or become one herself earned her the respect of Rome, who considered her a worthy adversary, made all the more remarkable because she was also a woman.
Looking again at Hadrian’s coin, it is not a great stretch of the imagination to see Britannia seated next to the large wheel of a sythed war chariot, which Queen Boudica is believed to have driven.
A similar design appeared on coins issued by Hadrian’s successor, Antoninus Pius (138-161 AD) who, unlike Hadrian, never visited Britain. His army successfully pressed further north and built the 39 mile long Antonine Wal. It spans what is today known as the Central Belt of Scotland between the Firth of Clyde to the Firth of Forth. Constructed primarily in turf and timber, the Antonine Wall took about twelve years to complete and was abandoned after only eight years.
On some coins, Britannia is depicted holding a Roman military standard alongside her spear. This arguably reflects the Emperor’s pride in securing this remote region of his empire for the glory of Rome.
Britannia continued to appear intermittently on Roman coins throughout the Roman occupation of Britain. During the reign of Commodus (177-192AD), she was depicted standing with a sword in one hand and a helmet in the other. However, after the Romans withdrew from Britain at the beginning of the fifth century, it would be more than a millennium before she would appear on a coin again.
Britannia Returns!
In 1661, King Charles II invited three Dutch brothers to move to London to join the Royal Mint as engravers. Their father, Philip Roettiers, a goldsmith in Antwerp, had loaned money to Charles during his time in exile and had been promised employment for his sons when the monarchy was restored. The royal invitation announcing the appointment of John, Joseph and Philip Roettiers stated that they were to be employed on account of the King’s long experience of their great skill and knowledge “in the arts of graveing and cutting in stone”.
Though it would appear that the appointment was made to return a favour, there is no doubt that all three brothers were extremely talented engravers. Within a year of arriving in London, John Roettiers (1631–1703) had been appointed one of the mint’s chief engravers and entrusted with the task of preparing the nation’s coinage. His younger brother Joseph, who acted as his principal assistant, later became engraver-general of the French mint in 1682. Their youngest brother, Philip, became engraver-general of the mint of the King of Spain in the Low Countries.
John Roettiers quickly acquired a reputation as one of the finest engravers ever employed at the mint. In 1666, the diarist Samuel Pepys visited him at his studio in the Tower of London, where he saw “some of the finest pieces of work, in embossed work, that ever I did see in my life, for fineness and smallness of the images thereon.” Pepys was so impressed that he resolved to take his wife to see them (Diary, 26 March 1666).
In addition to designing coins, Roettiers produced a new great seal of the kingdom of Great Britain and a large number of important medals. One commemorated the Peace of Breda, which marked the end of the second Anglo-Dutch War in 1667. The large (56mm diameter) medal was struck in gold, silver and bronze, and the obverse was a portrait of the King, wearing a laurel wreath in his long hair. For the reverse design, Roettiers drew inspiration from an ancient coin, first struck during the reign of Emperor Hadrian during the Roman occupation of Britain in the second century.
That design depicted Britannia, the female personification of Britain, dressed in flowing robes and seated by rocks, with a shield in one arm and a large shield at her side. On the Roman coin, she rested her chin on one hand as if contemplating her fate under occupation. Roettiers gave her an olive branch to hold instead, to convey her desire for peace. She continues to hold a spear, and Roettiers emblazoned her shield with the Flag of Great Britain to symbolise the union of England and Scotland. Her proud gaze is fixed on a British Royal Navy ship as it sails out to sea to join others in the fleet on the horizon. The inscription can be translated as, “By the favour of God”.
According to Pepys, Roettiers modelled his Britannia on Frances Teresa Stewart, the Queen’s lady in waiting, who became the Duchess of Richmond later that year. If correct, it was an inspired choice by the artist to secure royal approval for his work. When the sixteen-year-old Frances arrived at the royal court in 1661, she quickly attracted the attention of the King, who doted on her and tried unsuccessfully to make her his mistress. When Pepys saw her in the flesh, he described her as the greatest beauty he had ever seen and was in no doubt when he saw the medal that she had been the artist’s muse.
“At my goldsmith’s did observe the King’s new medall, where, in little, there is Mrs. Steward’s (sic) face as well done as ever I saw anything in my whole life, I think: and a pretty thing it is, that he should choose her face to represent Britannia by.”
Pepys Diary, 25 February 1667
The medal was a little premature in celebrating the end of the Anglo-Dutch War. Four months after Pepys had marveled at the design,a flotilla of Dutch ships brazenly sailed up the River Medway near Rochester to launch a devastating attack on the English navy in their home port. Thirteen English ships were destroyed by fire, and the Dutch captured and towed away HMS Unity and HMS Royal Charles, considered the pride of the English fleet. The war finally came to an end in July 1667 with the signing of the Treaty of Breda.
Roettiers design of Britannia was so well received that he was asked to adapt it for the reverse of the first copper halfpennies and farthings issued from 1672. It marked the return of Britannia on coins after an absence of more than a millennia. The transition to the smaller surface area meant that the artist had to simplify his design considerably. The maritime setting was lost, along with the ships under Britannia’s watchful gaze. The coins depict her with the Union Flag emblazoned shield at her side, an olive branch in one hand and a spear in the other.
Roettiers reputation continued to grow. The diarist John Evelyn described him as “that excellent graver … who emulates even the ancients in both metal and stone” (Diary, 20 July 1678). However, in later life, his Catholic sympathies led to him being removed from the engravers house at the Tower of London. In 1696, a House of Commons committee reported that, as a violent papist, he was unfit to remain as custodian of the dies, and he was forced to seek lodgings elsewhere for the last years of his life. When he died in 1703, permission was granted for him to be buried in the Tower that had been his home for thirty-five years.
The inspired decision to return Britannia to the nation’s coinage began an ongoing tradition of depicting her on British coins of the realm. Roettiers design would continue to appear on copper coins until 1775.
Full Steam Ahead! Britain’s Cartwheel Coins
The Industrial Revolution, which began in the middle of the eighteenth century, transformed Great Britain’s need for money. People living off the land in rural regions of the country had always been largely self-sufficient. They grew their own food, made their own clothes and bartered with their neighbours for everything else. However, as more and more people streamed into the new urban areas looking for work in the factories, so the need for good quality money to pay their wages became acute.
An official examination of coins in circulation in 1786 confirmed that the nation’s coinage was in a shocking state; badly worn, barely legible, underweight and mostly fake. It was determined that only about eight per cent of ‘halfpennies’ in circulation were genuine, and coins were often so badly worn that it was impossible to discern whether they were foreign, counterfeits or decades old. A population explosion between 1750 and 1800 did not help matters, putting additional pressure on the already inadequate coinage. Genuine coins were often hoarded, with the fakes spent first, thereby proving Gresham’s Law that “bad money drives out good”.
Matthew Boulton (1728 – 1809) was one of the founding fathers of the Industrial Revolution. Together with his business partner, the Scottish inventor James Watt, they developed and championed steam engine technology which powered the new factories and introduced a new era of transportation via the railways.
The Royal Mint responded to the crisis by effectively shutting down and producing no copper coins at all between 1775 and 1821. It was left to others to come up with a solution to the problem of inadequate coinage. Some enterprising business owners began making copper tokens, which could be redeemed by their employees in company shops. Unlike coins, tokens did not require the value of the metal to match the face value of the coin, and so they could be struck in large quantities at little cost. Provided the tokens did not resemble official coins, they were also completely legal to produce.
In 1788 Boulton installed a set of steam-driven coin presses at his Soho Manufactory in Handsworth, Birmingham. Each was made to his patented specifications and could strike up to 84 coins per minute. Boulton had shares in several Cornish copper mines, which gave him access to large quantities of the metal when the mines could not sell it elsewhere.
In addition to producing copper tokens and medals, the Soho Mint also signed lucrative contracts to strike coins for India, Sierra Leone and Russia. They also produced high-quality coin blanks for mints around the world to strike into coins. Over twenty million blanks were produced for the US Mint in Philadelphia, where Mint Director Elias Boudinot described them as “perfect and beautifully polished”.
Despite these successes, Boulton’s attempts to persuade the Treasury to let him use his pioneering steam-powered technology to strike new British copper coins repeatedly fell on deaf ears. He championed his machines at every opportunity, declaring that;
“(they) will coin much faster, with greater ease, with fewer persons, for less expense, and more beautiful than any other machinery ever used for coining … It strikes the pieces perfectly round, all of equal diameter, and exactly concentric with the edge, which cannot be done by any other machinery now in use.”
Matthew Boulton
On 14th April 1789, Boulton wrote to the Treasury to complain that two-thirds of the halfpennies he received in his change as he travelled around the country were counterfeit. He offered to produce new copper coins at half the cost incurred by the Mint, but his offer was ignored.
Boulton continued to pester the Treasury for the next eight years until he was awarded a contract to strike copper pennies and two pennies. They had to weigh one and two ounces respectively, so that the costs of the metal and production would match the denominational value. The Treasury hoped that this would restore the public’s confidence in the currency by making them uneconomical to counterfeit. This would encourage people to reject fake coins when they received them in their change.
Boulton’s 1797 dated copper coins were unlike anything people had seen before. The first coins to be struck using steam power were by far the largest and heaviest coins ever to circulate in Britain, with the penny weighing in at one ounce (28.3g) and measuring 36mm in diameter. The two penny weighed two ounces (56.7g) and had a diameter of 41mm. Both coins featured the same design by the Soho Mint’s sole artist and engraver, Conrad Heinrich Küchler (c.1740-1810).
In addition to creating a new portrait of the King for the obverse, Küchler, a German immigrant, also presented a new maritime interpretation of the female personification of Britain. Britannia now sits on an island surrounded by water to convey Britain’s supremacy of the seas.
To reinforce the maritime theme, Küchler removed the spear that Britannia had carried since her first appearance on coins struck during the reign of the Emperor Hadrian during the Roman occupation of Britain in the second century. In its place, he gave her a trident, like the one wielded by Neptune, the god of the sea. In her other hand, she holds out an olive branch as a symbol of peace. To complete the design, a ship sails by on the horizon to symbolise Britain’s naval dominance. The ship is believed to represent a warship, with its gun ports visible. The small mint mark of the Soho Mint (the word ‘SOHO’) can be seen in the rock below Britannia’s shield.
The new coins marked the first time that Britannia had appeared on the penny and two pence. Both denominations were struck with tremendous accuracy to a very high-quality standard. To further frustrate the counterfeiters, each coin had a broad raised rim on each side with letters and numbers stamped into it, which earned them the nickname ‘cartwheels’. Although fraudsters did try to imitate the coin, their efforts were largely unsuccessful. However, once the novelty had worn off, people began to appreciate just how impractical they were in their pockets and purses.
Eventually, the widespread use of lightweight copper tokens convinced the Treasury that the public would accept and even prefer coins with a face value above the cost of the metal made to produce them. When more copper pennies were required in 1806, Boulton was permitted to make them smaller and lighter. Küchler’s maritime Britannia later appeared on copper farthings, and halfpennies struck at Boulton’s Soho Mint in 1799 and again in 1806.
Matthew Boulton provided Britain with a supply of reliable copper coinage for the first time and ably demonstrated that his new steam-powered technology could produce coins of exceptional quality and accuracy in large numbers at a relatively low cost. After he died in 1809, his colleague paid tribute to his business partner in a eulogy, declaring;
“Had Mr. Boulton done nothing more in the world than he has accomplished in improving the coinage, his name would deserve to be immortalised.”
James Watt
By the time new copper coins were required in 1821, the Royal Mint in London was ready and willing to produce them once again.
Pistrucci’s Forgotten Coin Masterwork – The 1821 Farthing
Today, Benedetto Pistrucci is probably best remembered for his neoclassical masterwork of Saint George fighting the dragon on the British gold sovereign. The design has been popular ever since it first appeared in 1817, and is still struck on sovereigns today. However, his second great coin design, created for Britain’s lowest value coin, the farthing, in 1821, has been largely forgotten today. This might be due to the fact that the design was only struck for five short years before it was unceremoniously dropped after the artist suffered a spectacular fall from grace.
The design is of a striking young woman, wearing a long flowing robe and the battle helmet of an ancient warrior. Armed with a trident and a shield emblazoned with the Union flag, she looks out to sea with a proud and focused gaze, as if scanning the horizon for signs of danger and ready to defend her land from invasion. Her name is Britannia, and she is the female personification of Britain.
Britannia was already an established figure on British coins when Pistrucci decided to give her a radical makeover. She first appeared on Roman coins during the reign of the Emperor Hadrian in the second century. The unknown engraver depicted her in long flowing robes and carrying a spear with a large shield at her side. However, after the Romans left Britain, Britannia did not return to the coinage until 1672, when the Dutch artist John Roettiers emblazoned her shield with the Union Flag to symbolise the unity of the Kingdom. More than a century later, in 1797, the German engraver Conrad Heinrich Küchler incorporated a maritime theme into the design, replacing Britannia’s shield with a trident and placing her on an island surrounded by water to convey Britain’s supremacy of the seas.
Born in Rome, Pistrucci quickly acquired a reputation as the finest engraver of his age. Shortly after arriving in London in 1816, he was commissioned to design new coins of the realm. The Italian artist had a passion for classical art, and it was said that he liked to “study Greek originals day and night”. In 1817 he crafted a depiction of Saint George and the dragon for the new gold sovereign and gave England’s patron saint the plumed helmet of an ancient Greek warrior. Four years later, he was inspired to give Britannia the same battle helmet on the humble farthing, which was Britain’s lowest value coin.
Pistrucci may have been inspired to make this radical change to Britannia’s appearance by a popular eighteenth-century painting of the Celtic warrior Queen Boudica by the artist John Opie, who anachronistically depicted her wearing this plumed headgear. It is also possible that he was inspired by artistic depictions of the Pallas, a Titan god in Greek mythology. Pallas appears as a robed female figure with a plumed helmet and shield on several medals, including the medal struck for the coronation of Queen Anne.
Britannia’s striking new appearance on coins arguably transformed her in the public consciousness from a remote, ethereal observer into the strong warrior Queen and protector of the realm. Pistrucci also depicted her on the reverse of his bronze Coronation Medal struck in 1821. This design shows the new King, George IV, crowned by the winged figure of victory, while the female personifications of the British realms, namely Britannia, Scotia and Hibernia, all swear allegiance to him.
Today, one only has to visit the Italian Mint museum in Rome, which holds the world’s largest archive of Pistrucci’s work, to see that the pairing of an ancient Greek battle helmet with the head of a beautiful young woman was a subject that fascinated him.
Another remarkable feature of Pistrucci’s 1821 farthing is the inclusion of a lion at Britannia’s feet. Only the head and front paws are visible, and position is, in heraldic terms, ‘couchant’, that is, lying down with the head raised. He appears to be watching the horizon with Britannia for signs of danger. The striking proximity of the majestic reclining lion to the seated woman is particularly effective and adds to Britannia’s mystique as the fearless protector and guardian of the British Isles.
In keeping with the maritime theme introduced by Küchler in 1797, Pistrucci retained the trident for his Britannia, but she now grasps it like a warrior, pointing it firmly outwards in a combat-ready stance. There was no room on the small farthing to depict her surrounded by water. Small waves appear under her feet to indicate that she is sitting on the shoreline and looking out to sea. Pistrucci also turned her to face the right for the first time, as if to recognise that any future threat to Britain would likely come from the East rather than the West. It would have felt like a pertinent observation, coming just six years after the Battle of Waterloo. Britannia would remain facing right on Britain’s coinage for the next 187 years, until 2008.
Sadly, Pistrucci did not have the opportunity to create a Britannia reverse for the larger copper coins, namely the penny and the halfpenny, which would have allowed him the opportunity to expand his design. No new copper coins were required until 1825, and by that time, Pistrucci was no longer employed as a coin engraver after suffering a spectacular fall from grace.
King George IV was unhappy with the way Pistrucci had depicted him on coins as an overweight Nero with short curly hair and crowned with a laurel wreath in the Roman Imperial tradition. This neo-classical portrait was at odds with the reputation he tried to cultivate as a fashionably modern and debonair ladies’ man. He requested that the Royal Mint change his portrait, and he supplied them with a flattering marble bust of himself by the sculptor Sir Francis Chantrey to use as a model.
Pistrucci was outraged, claiming that copying the work of another artist would violate his artistic integrity. When the King helpfully sent an equally flattering painting of himself by Sir Thomas Lawrence to inspire the artist, it is said that the volatile Italian, after being ordered by his superiors at the Mint to hang it in his studio, stubbornly turned it to face the wall.
Pistrucci’s unwillingness to give the King what he wanted would quickly see him out of royal favour and replaced as a coin engraver by an artist who would. William Wyon dutifully supplied a new portrait of the King modelled on the Chantrey bust, which met with royal approval. The designs that Pistrucci had created for Britain’s coinage were replaced, and he would not live to see his work appear on coins again.
Wyon became the first English artist to depict Britannia on circulating coins. His depiction of Britannia is elegant and well proportioned, but when viewed alongside Pistrucci’s farthing, she arguably lacks the regal bearing and poise of that short-lived design, which was dropped from the farthing in 1826.
Noticeably absent from Wyon’s redesign is the lion that Pistrucci had placed at Britannia’s side and the olive branch she carried as a symbol of peace. But he did choose to retain the battle helmet that Pistrucci had given her. By doing so, he ensured that this would form part of Britannia’s distinctive identity to this day.
A right-facing Britannia continued to appear on British coins throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In 1968, the artist Christopher Ironside chose to reunite Britannia with the lion on the reverse of the new decimal Fifty Pence. Since 2015 she has appeared on the £2 coin, designed by Anthony Dufort. She still wears the battle helmet of an ancient warrior, just as she did for the first time on Pistrucci’s farthing in 1821.
Because Pistrucci’s iconic depiction of Britannia appeared for just five years on Britain’s lowest value coin, his contribution to creating such an enduring symbol of Britain has been largely overlooked today. Unlike his Saint George and the dragon, which continues to be struck on gold sovereigns to this day, Pistrucci’s second great coin masterwork has, at the time of writing, never appeared on coins again.