ARTICLE: BOULTON, DROZ AND THE SOHO MINT

The piece pictured is one that was owned by Matthew Boulton, and put aside by him.

This medal was struck at the Soho Mint in 1803, during an argument conducted in three countries in three languages on two medals!! Matthew Boulton, depicted on the obverse of the medal above, was at the forefront of the Industrial Revolution. He and his partner, James Watt the engineer, had worked for many years perfecting the steam engine. By 1785, they had examples of their engines at work in mines from Cornwall to Scotland, and were beginning to get them into other commerce. Hooked up to knitting machines, milling machinery, and even a coin press, they were beginning to see the fruits of their labors.

Boulton hired a engineer from France, one J. P. Droz, who showed him a multi-step press and coin ejecting collar that, well, was not quite perfected - but when it was, Droz assured him, Boulton would have his automatic coin ejecting collar. Droz also held that he was the premier engraver and die sinker in the world, and his new press and new collar would change the way money was struck. Boulton hired him.

Promises are about all that Boulton ever got from him. The special press and collar was always "close to ready" but never completed, his die work was fine, if you could get him to do it - and finally Boulton simply called an end to the association, paying him off for work never done and letting him go.

Droz found a home at the Paris mint, gaining as good a reputation there as the bad one he had earned in England.

In 1803, Droz made a pattern coin for Spain, in an attempt to gain a coinage contract from Spain for the Paris mint. On it, he listed a lot of things that Boulton had done, and called them his own, the self ejecting collar among them. He said that anyone else claiming these things was a fraud. All of this was on a French pattern medal or coin, and in Spanish. Boulton found out about it.

Boulton immediately answered, in French, on a medal made at the Soho Mint. Pictured above, the photo has information on the machinery used, the speeds involved, and the number of coins that could be produced. In French, with Boulton planning to send copies there to refute the claims of J. P Droz, translation of the reverse reads "In 1788 M. Boulton, Soho, England, made a steam machine for coining money, and in 1798 a superior one. Both machines can be worked by children with ease, and the speed increased to the degree required. The circles mark the diameter of the pieces, and the figures the number which can be struck per minute" This establishes a time line for the beginnings of steam powered coining.

To read the complete article, see: The Powers of the Soho Mint (www.coinsweekly.com/en/Article-of-the-week/5)

Wayne Homren, Editor

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