The fabled Soho Mint of Birmingham, England was at the vanguard of the Industrial Revolution. The Mint’s owners, Matthew Boulton and James Watt, pioneered many concepts that are still viable today. Watt, for example, is the man for whom a certain unit of energy (the watt) is named. He also invented the reciprocating steam engine and, in doing so, literally made steam the driving force behind the Industrial Revolution. Boulton was more of a salesman and spokesman, and generally managed the business while Watt oversaw technical operations.
In addition to their state-of-the-art factory, Boulton and Watt also employed some of the finest artists/engravers in the world. As a result, their products were not only well-made, they were beautiful too. Boulton’s pride in their products remains evident in his letters to customers and potential customers. He openly bragged about the superiority of his Manufactory’s products to anything currently circulating regardless of whether they were regally-sanctioned or privately produced. His business records, for example, contain may references to instances where he gratuitously produced presentation-grade versions of his coins (today, collectors regard them as proofs but in his ledgers and correspondence, he referred to them as specimens) and distributed them to dignitaries, customers, and potential customers as a means of convincing them about the superiority of his Mint’s products. And, they truly were special!
To demonstrate just how special Boulton’s specimens were relative to the normal quality, one need look no further than his efforts to seal the deal for Bermuda’s penny of 1793. Boulton tried desperately to win the contract for this coinage, and even had dies made up at his own expense to demonstrate his Mint’s prowess. When that failed, he next delivered an actual sample of the Bermuda pennies in May of 1793 – a full 7 months after having shown Brickwood the dies! An accounting ledger entry from the Soho Mint dated 9 May 1793, seven months after the start of negotiations adds detail to our understanding of Bermuda pennies. That ledger entry reveals that the Mint charged the cost of 100 specimens to “sundries”. Specifically accounted for are:
To copper, for 50 specimens, bronzed, and fifty ditto, copper, Bermuda coin, weight 3 lbs £. 0.3.0To Coinage, for coining expences on 42 lbs Bermuda coins £. 0.1.6; Grand Total = £. 0.4.6
Boulton’s Ledger 1792
These two terse ledger entries are deceptively revealing. Besides revealing the cost of copper and coining expenses, we have irrefutable evidence that the Soho Mint coined 45 lbs of copper into Bermuda coins in May, 1793. Of that amount, 100 were “specimens”, split evenly between copper and the Soho Mint’s proprietary bronzed finish. These 100 specimens weighed 3 lbs, which is highly consistent with the weight of surviving proof and uncirculated examples of this issue. These 100 presentation-grade prestrikes have been classified by Major Fred Pridmore as the 5A proof variety, and correctly quantified at a total mintage of 50 bronzed and 50 copper specimens. Although they appear for sale infrequently, these specimens are appreciated as an original Soho Mint product and valued for their rarity and authenticity. The fact that they were struck in advance of the contract for the commercial coinage has never generated much critical or analytical thought.
The other 42 pounds of copper were turned into 1,400 circulation-grade coins specifically to demonstrate production quality vs. presentation grade coins. A comparison of the cost to manufacture each is quite revealing. Excluding the cost of copper, a specimen cost approximately 3.6 pence to make, while circulation-grade coins on that small scale cost just 0.039 pence to make. Clearly, Boulton’s specimens were intended to impress!
The fact that Boulton would manufacture 1,500 coins in the hopes that it would result in a customer proves that not only did the Soho Mint make restrikes, they also speculatively minted prestrikes. I can find no evidence to prove whether these prestrikes were shipped to Bermuda or quietly dispersed to British numismatists by Brickwood. Numismatists place a premium on the 50 bronzed and 50 copper prestrike proofs but the circulation-grade prestrikes seem to have been perfectly integrated into the body of production coins. Consequently, no separate market exists for them. Whether this can be interpreted as meaning the 1400 prestrike production coins were actually shipped to Bermuda for use in 1794 is not known.
Pridmore called the proof or specimen prestrike his 5A variety. These were literally the very first pennies produced for Bermuda. Besides the obvious reflective fields and early die states, the keys to identifying this variety are the truly single pennant atop the ship’s mainmast (seen in Picture 2), and the S in GEORGIVS is repunched slightly north creating an S-over-Wide-S image (seen in Picture 3). Some of the first strikes of this prestrike lot exhibit extremely fine die polish lines in the fields attesting to the fact that the dies were polished.
Likely due to a mint worker’s mistake, the same reverse die (identified by the single pennant atop the main mast) was also used to make the 1,400 circulation-grade prototypes, effectively destroying a specimen-grade die. The circulation-grade prestrikes were made using a different obverse die which went on to become the workhorse die of the production coinage. These prototypes are unknown to the collector community and surviving specimens – when they appear in the market – are bought and sold as uncirculated examples of a production coin. Circulated examples are very difficult to discern from production coins, although it may be possible to do so by comparing obverse-to-reverse die states.
The key diagnostic for differentiating these prototypes from actual production coinage is the die state of the reverse. The single-pennant reverse die of these prototypes had been polished to a proof standard. Thus, even though the flans were not polished, the reverses would still be proof-like while the obverse would be more typical of an early die state production die. One can see the proof-like fields by tilting the coin to see the degree of reflectivity in the fields. This would be especially true of the earlier strikes of this batch of prestrikes. Later strikes may be more difficult to differentiate from true single-pennant production coins, as would any coins that have circulated.
Picture 4 shows an uncirculated surviving example of the circulation-grade prestrike coinage. The key to identifying this coin as one of the prestrikes is the combination of an early die state on both the obverse and reverse, the highly reflective fields on the reverse, and the utter lack of die chips and cuds that plague this issue. There are the very faint beginnings of die cracks on the obverse that would eventually destroy this die. The first one spans RGIV in GEORGIVS while the other runs from George’s eyebrow to the G in the legend D G REX.
Picture 4 Die Marriage 2A Prestrike
After the two batches of prestrikes were made, the Soho Mint produced the circulation-grade coinage to satisfy the contract. They minted a long ton of copper using two obverse dies and three reverse dies (including reverse die A). The mint may have hoped to salvage their worn specimen reverse die, as it appears the main body of production appears began with the obverse die used to make the 2A prestrikes, mated to a new reverse die created specifically for production coinage. The new reverse die features a fully split pennant atop the mainmast.
Ultimately, the Mint deemed the worn presentation-grade reverse die unacceptable for producing presentation-grade specimens. It was, however, still good enough to make circulation-grade coins. It was paired with the #2 obverse die and used to mint approximately 25% of the total mintage.
This sequence of events left the Soho Mint with a presentation-grade obverse die but no corresponding reverse die. When it began to make presentation-grade copies the 1793 Bermuda penny it was forced to create a new reverse die for use with Obverse Die #1. This series of coins is addressed in the next section, Soho Mint Restrikes.