Old Hammered Money — Pre-1662 English Hand-Struck Silver Coinage
Old Hammered Money — Pre-1662 English Hand-Struck Silver Coinage
The handcrafted silver coins that the introduction of milling rendered obsolete in the seventeenth century
Old hammered money is the term used for English silver coinage produced before 1662 by the traditional hammering process, in which a silver blank was placed between two engraved dies and struck by hand to impress the design. The technique had been the standard production method for English coinage since the Anglo-Saxon period and remained in use under the Royal Mint until the introduction of mechanised milling under Charles II. Hammered coinage was struck at sterling fineness — 92.5 per cent silver, 7.5 per cent copper, the same standard that defines sterling silver hollowware and jewellery — but the irregular thickness, inconsistent weight, and easily clipped edges of hand-struck pieces made the coinage notoriously vulnerable to debasement and fraud.
Production process
The hammering process began with the casting of silver into thin sheets, which were then cut into roughly circular blanks by hand-shears. The blank was placed on the lower die — set into an anvil — and the upper die was held above it. A blow with a heavy hammer drove the upper die into the blank, impressing the design simultaneously on both faces. Two strikes were typically needed to bring up a clear impression on both sides, and slight movement between strikes produced the characteristic doubling visible on many surviving examples. The Royal Mint operated this way through the late mediaeval and early modern periods, gradually introducing minor mechanisations but retaining the fundamental hand-struck character.
The clipping problem
Because hammered coins were irregular in outline and weight, unscrupulous handlers could trim small amounts of silver from the edges of each coin without altering its appearance enough to attract attention. Over time, a substantial portion of the circulating silver was clipped off the coinage and converted to ingot or unmarked silver. By the mid-seventeenth century the average circulating coin had lost a meaningful fraction of its original weight, and the discrepancy between face value and silver content threatened the integrity of the monetary system. Sir Isaac Newton, as Master of the Mint from 1699, was deeply involved in the technical and policy responses to this problem, including the Great Recoinage of 1696.
The transition to milling
The Royal Mint introduced mechanised screw-press minting under Charles II in 1662. The new milled coinage had reeded or lettered edges that revealed clipping immediately, and the consistent weight and shape produced by mechanised striking made the coinage much harder to debase. Hammered coinage was demonetised in stages over the following decades, and by the early eighteenth century it was no longer legal tender. Surviving hammered coins passed into the numismatic market, where they have remained ever since.
Relevance to jewellery research
Old hammered money matters to antique jewellery research in two principal ways. First, the coinage is sometimes encountered as a component of historic jewellery — set into rings, pendants, or larger ornamental compositions, particularly in the Victorian and Edwardian fashion for coin-set jewels. The provenance and dating of the coin contributes to the dating of the jewel. Second, hammered coinage was historically a major source of silver for the silversmith's bench: clipped or full-weight coins were melted and reworked into spoons, plate, and jewellery, and the sterling fineness of the coinage carried through into the resulting objects. Reading old assay marks and silversmith's records sometimes requires understanding what coinage was available to the workshop at a given moment.