Milled Coins
View a comprehensive range of Milled Coins at BullionByPost. We stock both gold milled coins and silver milled coins, ranging from Crowns and Florins to Guineas and Shillings.
Milled or 'machine-struck' coins were the successor to hammered coins and utilised modern machinery to produce the coins at a faster rate and with greater consistency than hand-made production.
Milled coins first came to exist in 1550 in Europe following a surge in demand and a desire to protect against counterfeit production. Low-quality coins were being produced by Mints in an attempt to match demand, which made them easy to 'clip' to steal precious metal from the edges.
It was the French who struck first and moved to mechanical production - a decision designed to help France get an edge over the Holy Roman Empire. An unnamed French engineer - believed to be Marx Schwab - designed the new screw press and within a year France had a mechanised mint called the Moulin des Étuves.
In 1560, Queen Elizabeth I orchestrated a Great Recoinage in Britain and mechanised production came to England, though France, Britain and the rest of Europe didn't wholly adopt milled coins until many years later.