now in use in the Royal
Mint; for a long period they coined the copper money, as also some silver
money for the United Kingdom, as well as money of all denominations for many
foreign countries, tokens, and medals innumerable. They made coins for the
French Convention.

During the war, when money was scarce and small notes were in circulation,
many tradesmen, and several public establishments issued "tokens," which
were, in fact, metal promissory notes, as they were seldom of the intrinsic
value stamped on them. By this expedient retailers advertised themselves,
and temporarily increased their capital. Some successful speculators made
fortunes, others were ruined by the presentation of all their metal notes of
hand at periods of panic.

At any rate, the manufacture of these articles had a great deal to do with
the education of workmen for the medal manufacture which is now so
extensively carried on.

The dies from which coins and medals are struck, are, of course, all executed
by hand, and the excellence of each coin or medal depends on the skill of
each individual workman; therefore there has been no great improvement in
execution--indeed, some medals and coins struck two thousand years ago, rival,
if they do not excel, the best works of the present day. The improvements of
modern mechanical science are all in the die presses, and in producing cheap
metal. These improvements have enabled Birmingham to establish a large trade
in cheap medals, which are issued in tens of thousands on every occasion that
excites the public mind. Jenny Lind and Father Mathew were both excellent
customers of the medallists in their day.

The medallists are not confined to the home market; France has been supplied
with effigies of her rival Presidents, Louis Napoleon and Cavaignac, and we
should not be surprised to find that some day a contract has been taken for
the medals which the Pope blesses and distributes. Schools and Temperance
Societies are good customers, and occasionally a good order comes in from a
foreign state or colony, for coins. In 1850 Mr. Ralph Heaton made ten tons
of copper coin for Bombay, called cock money, so called because bearing a
cock on the obverse, from dies purchased at the sale at Soho.

The late Sir Richard Thomason was a considerable manufacturer of medals, and
a very curious collection may be seen at the showrooms of his successor, Mr.
G. R. Collis, who carries on the same trade, and is consul for