to be in Blondeau's hand, in which he claims
his process, 'as a new invention, to make a handsome coyne, than can
be found in all the world besides, viz., that shall not only be
stamped on both flat sides, but shall even be marked with letters on
the thickness of the brim.' The letters were raised. The press
Blondeau used was, I believe, the ordinary screw-press, and I
suppose that the presses drawn in Akerman's well-known plate of the
coining-room of the Mint in the Tower, published in 1803 ['Microcosm
of London,' vol. ii., p. 202], if not actually the same machines,
were similar to those erected in 1661-62 by Sir William Parkhurst
and Sir Anthony St. Leger, wardens of the Mint, at a cost of L1400,
Professor Roberts-Austen shows that Benvenuto Cellini used a similar
press to that attributed to Blondeau, and he gives an illustration
of this in his lecture (p. 810). In a letter to the editor the
professor writes: "Pepys's account of the operations of coining, and
especially of assaying gold and silver, is very interesting and
singularly accurate considering that he could not have had technical
knowledge of the subject."]

10. They mill them, that is, put on the marks on both sides at once with
great exactness and speed, and then the money is perfect. The mill is
after this manner: one of the dyes, which has one side of the piece cut,
is fastened to a thing fixed below, and the other dye (and they tell me
a payre of dyes will last the marking of L10,000 before it be worn out,
they and all other their tools being made of hardened steel, and the
Dutchman who makes them is an admirable artist, and has so much by the
pound for every pound that is coyned to find a constant supply of dyes)
to an engine above, which is moveable by a screw, which is pulled by
men; and then a piece being clapped by one sitting below between the two
dyes, when they meet the impression is set, and then the man with his
finger strikes off the piece and claps another in, and then the other
men they pull again and that is marked, and then another and another
with great speed. They say that this way is more charge to the King than
the old way, but it is neater, freer from clipping or counterfeiting,
the putting of the words upon the edges being not to be done (though
counterfeited) without an engine of the charge and noise that no
counterfeit will be at or venture u