Milled Money Öffentlichkeit Deposited
A name given to such coins as were made by the employment of the mill and screw process which superseded the hammered coins (q.v.).
Folkes states that "the maker of this milled money is reported to have been one Philip Mastrelle, a Frenchman, who eventually, however, fell into the practice of coining counterfeit money, and was convicted, and executed at Tyburn, on the 27th of January, 1569." Kenyon states that the "new process of coining, by means of the mill and screw, was introduced into England from France, apparently by a Frenchman called Eloye Mestrell." Hawkins, on the other hand, asserts that "the name of the Frenchman is unknown and the whole history of the process and its employment is involved in singular obscurity."
One thing, however, is certain, and that is that from 1561 to 1575 milled coins were made in England, but as they did not win entire approval, they were discontinued and not revived until November 5, 1662, when a warrant was issued for coining by the mill altogether.
Shakespeare alludes to the milled Sixpence in The Merry Wives of Windsor (i. 1).
For an exhaustive treatise on the early minting operations by mill and screw, see Mr. W.J. Hocking's monograph entitled Simon's Dies in the Royal Mint Museum, with Some Notes on the Early History of Coinage by Machinery, contributed to the Numismatic Chronicle (4th Series, vol. ix).
- Frey's Dictionary (American Journal of Numismatics, Vol. 50, 1916)