THE METAL IN BRITAIN’S COINS
WHERE DID IT COME FROM & HOW DID IT GET HERE?
When we’re studying classic British coins, depicting the stoic portraits of monarchs from our past, we can often overlook the origins of the materials used to make these symbols of power. In this special feature, author Graham Birch provides a new perspective on the nation’s coinage, explaining how many of our coins were made with material from all corners of the world
Unlike collectors, economic historians are not interested in the condition or rarity of a coin. Instead they are concerned only with what a coin can tell us about monetary history. Coins are physical embodiments of wealth and the origin of metals in our money reflects the events taking place when they were made. Coins are useful to economists because until the supremacy of fiat ‘paper currency’, there were only three ways to grow the monetary base;
• Trading goods
• Mining
• Capturing bullion
Numismatists know that it is often possible to determine exactly where the bullion for each coin originated. Logos and privy marks provide a record of bullion sources and decoding these marks adds interest to a collection as well as providing historians with the knowledge they need. While many collectors know something about provenance marks, detailed knowledge is dispersed. My new book The Metal in Britain’s Coins remedies this. Using multiple sources – including contemporary newspapers – the book sets out the back-stories behind some of our most cherished coins.
Britain’s earliest coins
Despite its reputation as a trading nation, Britain was a latecomer to money use and coins didn’t appear until centuries after their invention in Lydia. Its safe to say that all the bullion for Britain’s earliest coins was earned through trade. Celtic tribes in England supplied mercenaries and raw materials to their counterparts on the near continent and in return received European Celtic and Roman coins which were then melted down and struck into a coinage for local use (figure 1). The designs are distinctively Celtic but were loosely based on Philip of Macedon staters circulating in the Mediterranean.
The Roman invasion of 43 AD put a stop to Celtic money. After that, Britain’s wealth depended on imported coinage which arrived in the pay packets of soldiers stationed here. Roman money ‘trickled down’ into local communities creating a consumer boom which raised living standards dramatically. Rome’s own gold and silver supply came from the Macedonian/Greek mines together with new mines in Spain. Some mines – such as the Las Medulas gold mine were large even by modern standards (figure 2).
The trading corporations
The departure of the Romans was a calamity and it took centuries for money supply to recover. Recover it did though and in the medieval period it was the wool trade which earned the German-mined silver underpinning the expansion of penny output seen in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. This trading was with our neighbours and longdistance trading didn’t develop until the renaissance. Post-renaissance international trading was costly – too much for individuals – so this favoured the formation of ‘joint stock companies’ which could raise capital and share risk widely. Some of these well-resourced businesses brought back bullion which was minted into coins bearing their logo.
One of these was the Royal
African Company (RAC). Established in 1660, the RAC set up West African forts where it could sell weapons, textiles and metalware to African chiefs in exchange for locally mined gold. To enhance profitability RAC ships didn’t return to England once the merchandise was sold. Instead the RAC bought slaves which were then trafficked to the Americas/Caribbean in exchange for tropical goods such as sugar. This trade became known as the ‘Bloody Triangle’ and the unspeakable cruelty involved still resonates.
Large amounts of African gold was brought back to England and from 1663 until 1726 coins minted from this metal were distinguished by an elephant or elephant & castle below the bust (figure 3).
The elephant charmed the public and the coins became known colloquially as ‘guineas’.
Pre-dating the RAC by 61 years, the East India Company (EIC) was formed by Elizabeth I to exploit Asian trading opportunities. Exotic textiles and spices were prized in Europe and huge profits were available – underpinned by the
EIC’s monopoly on trade. What made the trade super-profitable though was a remarkable precious metals ‘arbitrage’. The import of silver from South America had distorted European metals markets and pushed the gold-silver ratio up to 14 to 1 whereas in China/India it was below 10 to 1. This differential created risk-free profits and meant that the EIC was constantly exporting silver and importing gold (inadvertently creating a silver coin shortage). In 1729, the EIC delivered gold from Canton to the Mint to be struck into guineas – marked ‘EIC’ under the bust (figure 4). The EIC was institutionally corrupt and these coins were perhaps used to bribe officials – the minting coincided with an Act which renewed the EIC’s monopoly.
Mining
Elizabeth I was jealous of the torrent of South American bullion flooding into Spain. She wanted something similar – and so much better if it was close to home. She therefore privatised mining rights and promoted joint stock companies to exploit the British mining opportunity. This worked, and by the 17th century, entrepreneurs such as Hugh Myddelton had applied new mining and smelting technology to develop underground mines in Wales which supplied a consistent supply of silver. Coins made with Myddelton’s bullion carry a Welsh plume to signify the origin of the metal.
After Myddelton’s death, the mines were acquired by Thomas Bushell – a protégé of Francis
Bacon. To make his mines more profitable, Bushell overcame the squeamishness of the Royal Mint and built an Aberystwyth branch mint. Aberystwyth coins carry the Welsh plume and have an ‘open book’ mintmark perhaps to show that Bushell had nothing to hide (figure 6). The establishment of the Aberystwyth mint proved fortuitous as when Civil War broke out in 1642, Bushell relocated the machines to Oxford and single handed provided finance for the Royalist army – utilising silver mined in Wales together with metal ‘borrowed’ from rich people and Oxford colleges. Bushell lacked access to gold and so to mint high denominations he struck silver pounds weighing over four ounces – Britain’s largest circulation coins.
By the start of the eighteenth century there was a thriving
‘junior’ mining sector in Britain with companies such as the ‘Mine Adventurers’ providing stockmarket appeal and sizzle. Although scandalously promotional, few made profits. The coins minted with their silver are a great industrial souvenir (figure 6).
By the 19th century, the monetary needs of Britain’s Empire were immense. Luckily, gold rushes in Australia, Canada and South Africa supplied vast wealth, cementing London’s position as the world’s premier financial centre. Production of sovereigns was so large that this denomination accounts for 5% of all the gold ever mined. There was no need to ship raw gold to London and branch mints were established to strike coins locally. For control, the Mint hid letters on the coins to show the origin; i.e. ‘S’ for Sydney and ‘C’ for Canada (figure 7).
Captured bullion
For lengthy periods, Europe’s money supply was dominated by bullion from the Spanish colonies and the ships which brought it across the Atlantic were tempting targets. England’s first attempt to capture bullion came on Drake’s circumnavigation of the globe in 1577-80. This privately financed voyage (with Elizabeth I as sponsor) was spectacularly successful, and the Queen’s treasure share was used to pay off England’s foreign debt with money left over for investment in new trading companies. John Maynard Keynes used this example to demonstrate the power of compound investment. He observed that by redeeming England’s debts and financing international trade Elizabeth established the foundations of our foreign reserves. Keynes calculated that by 1930, every £1 invested by Elizabeth had compounded to £100,000 (Economic
Possibilities for our Grandchildren, Keynes 1930)
The coins minted from Drake’s bullion can’t be specifically identified. However, other treasure seizures did lead to identifiable coins and at the forefront is the LIMA coinage of 1745/6.
There is still confusion about the source of the LIMA coin bullion with some stubbornly stating that they were minted with metal captured during Commodore Anson’s circumnavigation of the globe. In my book I set out evidence from contemporary newspaper reports which scotches the idea of involvement by Anson. The real story concerns two French ships seized in 1745 by English privateers from the ‘Royal Family’ squadron. Privateers were licensed by the Government and financed by wealthy investors. The Privateers engaged three French treasure ships;
Louis Erasme, Marquise D’Antin and the Deliverance (figure 8). The
Deliverance escaped – only to be subsequently captured by the Royal Navy in Nova Scotia.
The Royal Family’s treasure comprised eighty tonnes of bullion – worth £710,000
(£285m in today’s money). The privateers loaned this metal to the Government, which was in dire need, and the coins minted were marked LIMA (the source of the bullion) as a form of social media and propaganda (figure 9).
Shipwreck treasure
The final chapters in my book concern shipwrecks. The earliest is the story of the Spanish ship Concepcion which in 1640 struck a reef and was wrecked in a hurricane. Disorientated by the storm, her navigators lost track of her position and for 46 years the wreck location remained a mystery.
In 1686, a company was formed by Lord Albemarle to locate the ship. Led by William Phips – a New Englander – the expedition found the wreck north of the Dominican Republic and recovered 32 tonnes of bullion. The silver was brought back to London and struck into crowns dated 1687. Collectors of crowns know that these coins usually suffer striking defects – reflecting salt contamination of the silver. An impressive medal was struck to commemorate the salvage and a detail of this is shown in figure 10.
The final story in the book is the most recent. In 1941, the treasure ship SS Gairsoppa was carrying silver from India to the Mint when it was sunk by a U-boat off the west coast of Ireland. In 2010, the Government held a salvage tender to recover the silver. This was won by a US company, Odyssey Marine, which quickly located the wreck at a depth of 4,700m. Using robots, Odyssey cut through Gairsoppa’s hull and retrieved 109 tonnes of silver. Some of this silver was then minted into bullion coins dated 2013/14 – seventy years late (figure 11). The coins are inscribed ‘Gairsoppa’ on the edge – the only example of a Royal Mint provenance mark this millennium.
Extraordinary efforts
This small sample of the stories in my book highlight the extraordinary efforts that were made to bring wealth into Britain. Such a contrast with the present day when Rishi Sunak can ‘magic’ £300 billion of COVID-19 relief into existence with a few strokes of a computer keyboard. Chancellors from history would turn in their graves with envy at this modern conjuring trick.