Mint Technology

Technology is the branch of knowledge that deals with industrial arts and manufacturing. But what exactly is an industry? The experts assure us that the first industry developed by civilization was agriculture and as a logical extension, the grinding and preparation of agricultural products. This activity did not require specially designed and constructed buildings for production purposes.

Much later civilization developed artisan industries or handicrafts for production by hand or with simple tools of textiles, paper, glass, metals, and even coinage Coinage was invented around the year 700 B.C. and first produced by the hammer-struck method. Coins are considered the first industrial product mass produced in series according to exact specifications which were regulated by governments. But these early, non-mechanized industrial activities remained basically artisan crafts and none required specially designed manufacturing plants.

Given the importance of a product with such rigorous controls as the production of coinage, its industrial process rapidly developed into what is considered the first "complex" or "composite" industry. This required a highly specialized and differentiated labor force composed of expert technicians for each aspect of production. The most skilled workers were smelters, refiners and assayers to prepare the metal, engravers to prepare the punches and dies, weighmen to operate the balance scales for weighing brute metals and coins before and after striking, and blanchers to give the final product a brilliant luster. But there were also many other officials, some named directly by the king. These were the treasurer and others that ranged in importance from accountants, guards, constables (many mints had their own jails and independent justice systems) , overseers, scribes, and gatekeepers, to coiners and common laborers. Other early industries, mainly artisan crafts, could be performed from start to finish by one person working alone thus being termed "simple" industries.

The famous Pragmatic of Medina del Campo (July 13, 1497) can be considered the most complete and detailed ordinance ever given until then which regulated a "complex" industrial product and its manufacture. This document regulates not only the highly diversified labor force of all Spanish mints and exact product specifications - coin weight, fineness, design, legends, etc., but also creates the first guarantee which is to appear on each individual product. This is the assayer symbol which guarantees the coins fineness, the mint mark indicating the specific industrial plant where the product was made, the denomination number indicating the weight that each piece was to have according to the king's orders, and even his bust and name and the country of origin which were maximum guarantees of the product's backing. This ordinance, given over 500 years ago, represents a major milestone in industrial development and the advancement of civilization applied to the manufacture of the first truly "complex" industrial product: coinage.

It shouldn't surprise us that when mechanical methods were first applied in the manufacture of industrial products, that one of the most important uses would be to improve the quality of coinage. This would discount the very ancient practice of mechanically grinding agricultural grains; an activity which never went beyond a "simple" industrial process witnessed by the fact that neighbors of a millhouse usually took turns, one at a time, grinding their own grains.

Around 1508, the Forentine artist, Bramante, struck medals in a screw-press and some 30 years later another Florentine, Benvenuto Cellini, used a similar press to strike small coins. Around 1555, several screw-presses were installed in the Paris Mint. This new mechanical technology did not achieve wide spread acceptance due to protests of coiners which was a typical attitude toward industrial innovation which exists even today by workers who fear loosing their jobs to a machine.

Another type of mechanical coining apparatus was devised by Leonardo daVinci (1452-1519), whose notebooks show a drawing of the first example we know depicting a coin rolling-mill. This type of machine, coupled to a waterwheel (although they were also driven by horses) pressed the coin design onto a strip of metal which passed between two roller-dies. These machines allowed for production of coins with much larger diameters since the mechanical force was applied to a narrow band of the coin's surface which progressively advanced as the strip moved between the dies instead of being applied to the entire coin surface all at once as in the hammer-struck or screw-press methods. These new coining mills spread in usage during the mid-sixteenth century to various mints in the central European region of Germany, Austria and Hungary which were controlled by the Hapsburg family, whose dominion also included Spain.

It's worth mentioning that the German city of Augsburg had one of the most mechanically advanced mints of the entire world in the sixteenth century; which is, of course, where the printing press was invented one century earlier. Indeed this was the heart of world technological advancement in those days. The manufacture of coinage was still the most sophisticated "complex" industry that existed then and this new mechanical procedure was only known in Europe. The rest of the civilized world only knew "simple" or artisan industries which were generally not mechanized except for the milling of grains.

Along these lines we should remember the total absence of "complex" industries on the American and African continents during this period and point out that China, although very developed in an artistic and handicrafts sense, did not mechanically produce coinage until 1889. Although the Chinese produced coinage as far back as before the Christian era, the technical methodology always employed pouring molten metals into casts, the same as practiced in several regions of Africa until very recently.

Beginning around 1550, enormous amounts of silver began arriving in Spain, coinciding with the discovery of the legendary "Rich Mountain" of Potosí, in today's Bolivia. During this period Spain shipped large sums of money to Germany in order to maintain the Holy Roman Empire. This money, in the form of poorly produced, hammer-struck, coinage - with very uneven edges - was subject to the illicit art of coin clippers. These people clipped small amounts of gold and silver from coins and later returned the coins one by one to circulation at their face value. In large shipments of money going abroad the total value of the shipment, according to the face value of each coin, was compared to the total weight of the shipment according to what regulations required each coin to weigh. The resulting discrepancy, fruit of the coin clippers illicit art, caused reclamations and numerous inconveniences.

The new coin rolling-mills produced almost perfect coinage with such uniform edges that the illicit coin clippers could not help themselves to bits of gold and silver as before. The advantage this new technology provided was so evident to the Archduke of Tyrol Ferdinand, who received large shipments of Spanish coinage that he didn't hesitate to give some of the mills to his cousin, Philip II, King of Spain. These mills for the Spanish King were constructed in the Hall Mint, near Innsbruck, in today's Austria. The industrial convoy which brought this equipment to Segovia in 1584 along with a complete labor force composed of the most expert technicians of those days, is considered the largest, most important and complete transfer of industrial technology ever carried out over such a long distance until then in the history of mankind.

The building in Segovia in which this equipment would be installed was designed and built by Spain's most prestigious architect of all times, Juan de Herrera. He counted on the continuous assessment of another group of technicians who had come from Augsburg, Germany in 1582, specifically to assist in the selection of the most ideal site and the construction of what would be the largest and most important mint in the entire world. Logically this was for the most powerful ruler of those times who also had the largest quantity of gold and silver to be struck into coinage. The German technicians rolled the first trial pieces off the mills in Segovia in July of 1585, and thus debuted the most sophisticated mechanized industrial manufacturing plant ever built.

The other European mints, which numbered roughly a half dozen, had similar machinery that was old and the simple structures were reformed and adapted for the installation of these mechanized systems. The structure in Segovia was designed and built from the beginning as a truly modern, departmentalized factory. The original design of the building took into account the specialized machinery used for each step of the production line. Giant bellows driven by waterwheels blasted air into the smelting furnaces; rolling-mills also driven by waterwheels, processed the metal strips with smooth rollers until the desired thickness was attained. Other mills with engraved dies, rolled the coin design onto the metal strips. There were lathes, also driven by waterwheels, which were used to form the steel rollers and dies for the mills. Levered cutting machines punched the coins from the strips after they had been rolled with the coin impressions. Wooden boxes moved by way of pulleys raised and lowered coins and metal from one floor to another. The most intricate balance scales ever designed weighed ingots and coins. An endless list of other tools and implements were already being used in the traditional mints.

The Segovia plant was carefully designed in order to distribute each phase of the production in departments which permitted a logical progression of the work in the same way that modern factories are designed around the production line. In an identical way to modern factories, the Segovia plant manufactured - mechanically - millions of identical pieces in series.

Considering the specifics listed below:

the specialized field of each factory technician,
the detailed nature of the ordinances that regulated the work force,
the manufacturing process and product quality,
the appearance for the first time in history of a product guarantee on each individual item produced,
the sophisticated nature of the machinery that was brought to Segovia from thousands of miles away.

All these permitted the manufacture of products which were unalterable by a particular fraud which had plagued the traditional product ever since it was first invented. All this was installed in a building specifically designed from the beginning in departments that qualified as a true production line where millions of identical pieces were manufactured in series. That is, all in the year 1585, hundreds of years before what is considered the "industrial revolution'. It leaves us no doubt that we are dealing with one of the first truly modern industrial manufacturing plants in the history of mankind , and as such, one of the most important milestones in the development of civilization.

But, perhaps the most remarkable thing about all this, is that the physical structure of the Royal Mill Mint of Segovia remains standing today virtually intact, just as it was designed more than 400 years ago; although it is devoid of any minting machinery. Various factors have coincided in the survival of the Segovia plant, while many other historic industrial buildings in the rest of Europe, among them other mints, have disappeared. Very few industrial plants, new or old, survived the allied bombing suffered by Germany and surrounding countries during the wars of this century. Urban development in Europe has also done away with many old industrial plants which, unfortunately, have never received the respect given to other historic buildings such as palaces, castles, cathedrals, etc. In fact, it has only been in the past 20 years that man has come to recognize historic industrial buildings as an integral part of his Historic Patrimony and an indispensable testimony to the development of civilization!

Contrary to the cases mentioned above, Segovia has never suffered major destruction in any war, and its population is barely over twice what it was 400 years ago. The little growth that Segovia has experienced has all been in the southern districts of the city, while the northern side has remained virtually as it was centuries ago, thanks to the steep valley of the Eresma River which has acted as a shield in the protection of the Royal Mill Mint. Coin production lasted in the Mint until 1868 and immediately thereafter the building found a new use as a flour mill, an activity which did not require major renovations for its implantation. In fact, the building has been meticulously cared for up until the closure of the flour business in 1974. Its total abandonment since then has been the greatest enemy in all the years of its existence, a problem exacerbated, as mentioned above, by a general disdain towards industrial monuments in favor of the more traditional types, which are more than abundant in Segovia.

If we consider that coin manufacturing was the most highly developed industry in the sixteenth century and there were only a half-dozen or so factories similar to the Segovia plant of prior construction, none having been as technically designed or surviving until today, we arrive at the conclusion that the Royal Mill Mint of Segovia is without a doubt the oldest industrial manufacturing plant still standing. As such, a truly unique monument in its category, deserving of all the attention we can possibly give it.