Over the years coins have been produced in a number of ways. In certain places such as China they have often been cast in moulds, whilst in Western Europe they have usually been struck between a pair of hand-held dies. More recently, since the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, milling machines have increasingly been used as coin production has been mechanised. Yet, whatever process is used to manufacture a coin, mistakes can occur in every one of them.
It is probably best to begin in this first part of this article with what is generally known as hammered coinage, coins struck between two dies, one set into a solid object such as an anvil, and the other held over it by hand. Collars might be used to keep the upper die’s position in close alignment with the lower die but were probably not often used if at all since they would slow the speed at which coin striking might take place.
The design on the striking face of a die was built up by hand, generally by applying small puncheons to build up legends or pictorial devices and also by the use of engraving to add other details. Of course, a die) although perhaps it was this intense pressure that caused the error in the first place.
