There is no mystery about the making of money. The Royal Mint is
exactly like any other factory. This surprised me. I felt that the
manufacture of money must surely be surrounded by the unusual. It
hardly seemed natural that this metal for whose possession we sweat
and slave, lie and slander, and even, on occasions, commit murder,
should be churned out by nonchalant machines no different in their
general attitude towards production from those machines which cut out
nails or stamp out dust bins.
It was with quite a shock that I watched a half-crown machine at
work. What an ideal birthday present! The thing hypnotized me.
Click-click-click-click it went, and at every click a silver-white
half-crown was born, a real good half-crown ready to be spent. What
a generous mouth the machine had; how casual it was....
"Click-click" went the metal millionaire, shooting its lovely
children into a rough wooden trough. The pile grew as I watched it.
It began with a taxicab fare; the next second a twin was born; they
lay together for a second before they represented a solicitor's fee,
or a dog licence; in five more seconds there was a whole pound lying
there. So it went on hour after hour while spectators stood by
reverently feeling that the machine was grinning as it pounded away
enthusiastically producing potential ermine cloaks, motor-cars,
freehold houses, and winters in the south of France.
If only the Chancellor of the Exchequer would lend it to me for a
week!
* * *
How much easier money is to make than to earn!
The first stage in the life of a half-crown is a hot foundry where
men melt down bars of silver in crucibles. These crucibles lie in
gas furnaces that roar like hungry lions and give out a beautiful
orange flame ending in a fringe of apple-green light. An overhead
crane runs along, picks a red-hot crucible from the furnace, and
carries it to a place where a series of long moulds are waiting. The
silver is poured, spluttering and blazing, into these moulds, and the
result is a number of long, narrow silver bars, which are passed
through runners till the five-foot strip of silver is the exact
thinness of a half-crown.
These strips are then passed through machines which punch out silver
discs with remarkable speed. The next machine gives these plain
silver discs a raised edge, and the next--the machine worth
having--puts the King's head on them, mills their edges, and turns
them out into the world to tempt mankind.
* * *
While I was in the stamping-room of the Mint all the machines were
working full blast, except one which looked like a rich relation and
had become muscle bound. In one corner they were making East African
shillings by the hundred thousand, in another they were turning out
West African currency. The men had as much as they could do to keep
pace with them. No sooner had they carried away a trough full of
money, with the blasé air such an occupation induces, than a second
pile was lying there on the floor like a miser's hoard.
I saw enough African money made in half an hour to buy elephants,
thousands of wives, guns, horses, buffaloes, and a throne or two.
The raw material of a sultanate fell out on the floor of the Mint
before luncheon-time.
I could not, however, get worked up on African money. My first
bucketful of sixpences gave me a much greater thrill. There must
have been at least three thousand of them lying in bran. In the
shilling department they were turning out a good line in high-class
shillings, and the half-crown corner became positively thrilling.
"Where's the gold?" I said, feeling slightly heady.
"Ah, where?" replied my guide.
"America?" I suggested.
"Ah--um," he said reflectively.
Leading from the stamping-rooms are rooms where silver is polished,
but more interesting is the room in which its sound is tested. I
have often heard money talk, but I had never heard it sing before.
How it sings!
Men sit at little tables picking up half-crowns and dashing them
against a steel boss, with the result that the air is full of
something quite like bird song; only much more interesting. It would
surprise you to see how slight a defect disqualifies a coin. The
smallest irregularity in its ring, and, flip! it is lying in the
"rejected" basket.
I half hoped they allowed staff and visitors to have these throw-outs
at bargain prices; but there was nothing doing.
* * *
In other rooms men crouched over a revolving hand covered with money,
picking out any badly coloured coin as the constant stream advanced
towards them. The next department was a mechanical weighing-room, in
which wise-looking machines in glass cases put true coins in one
slot, light ones in a second, and heavy-weights in a third.
As a climax I saw a giant machine that counts half-crowns into one
hundred pound bags and never makes a mistake. I watched it count
forty bagsful and then walked thoughtfully away.
* * *
"What does it feel like to make money all day long and draw a few
pounds on Friday?" I asked a Mint worker.
"Oh, I dunno," he replied as he shook a thousand pounds through a
bran sieve. This is a merciful frame of mind.