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Dies For the First Newfoundland Coins.
When Newfoundland passed its Currency Act ( 25 March 1863 ) putting the colony on a decimal basis, it was assumed with some reasonable expectation that the new coins would be in circulation by about the first of January. In fact, there are Newfoundland patterns all dated 1864 and a large issue of cents was even struck - then melted down. The problem was that Newfoundland decided to base its new dollar on a different standard from its eastern Canadian neighbours; not much, but still enough to cause problems of delay.
Both Canada and New Brunswick had made their dollars equivalent to the American gold dollar, allowing them to circulate U.S. gold coin at face. It also meant that the British sovereign had to be valued at an awkward $4.867, but it was an matter of either/or since the two currency systems simply don't gibe. Nova Scotia went a different route, converting its already slightly overvalued pound to another overvalued "dollar" by valuing the British sovereign at an even $5.00 N.S. The upside was that neither new Nova Scotia gold or silver coins need be struck since the shilling was equal to 25¢ and the florin to 50¢ - although the sixpence at 12 ½ ¢ and the halfcrown at 67 ½ ¢ necessitated the issue of a Nova Scotia half-cent piece.
Newfoundland went neither route but rather valued its new dollar at one cent per British halfpenny - or the sovereign at $4.80 Nfld. But this "dearest" of Canadian dollars made all else of odd amounts: the sixpence 12¢, shilling 24¢, florin 48¢, halfcrown 60¢ and so forth. Even worse, the American $10 gold "eagle" was set at an awkward $9.85. But for the time being the silver dollars (only) of the U.S. and South America would still pass at an even $1.00 each. Canadian and New Brunswick silver change was not even mentioned. Not only would Newfoundland have to strike new silver coins, but a gold one as well - and it was this latter that gave the Lords of the Treasury fits and caused the whole coinage to be held up.
It was even worse than that. By law, the value of the Newfoundland dollar was dictated by the exact number of grains of pure gold contained, full bullion value for face. With a minting charge of 2 ½% and carriage beyond that, it seems likely that the cost to the province of each new $2 gold coin (the denomination decided upon) may have been close to 10¢ above face.
In the interests of speed and cost, someone - probably the Deputy Master of the Royal Mint - decided to simply convert New Brunswick coinage dies to those of Newfoundland . After all, N.B. had issued bronze cents as well as silver 5-, 10- and 20-cent pieces in 1862 and 1864, the current year, and these denominations were the same as those needed for the Island . At the very first this was done; there exist bronze patterns for Newfoundland for the cent, 5-, 10- and 20-cent piece identical to the New Brunswick coins save for the name change (Charlton Patterns NF-1 through 4) even to the same 1864 date. In addition, the New Brunswick 10-cent had been further altered on the reverse to make the Newfoundland $2 gold piece (NF-5).
But this could not be. Had Newfoundland been using the same Dollar as the Province of Canada and New Brunswick , this might have been an end to it, the denominations of all three very much the same. But with the more expensive Newfoundland Dollar out of sync with the other two, there was a very grave possibility that the cheaper (about 1.4 % cheaper in Newfoundland 's view) coins might be imported wholesale into the Island and passed at full face. Singly, this was all right - and in fact was the case to a small extent in both direction - but there existed the danger that wholesale lots might be used to buy the Newfoundland gold $2 piece at less than bullion value, and this definitely was not acceptable. Therefore the Island had to go to the additional expense of issuing coins with completely dissimilar reverses to eliminate the possibility of confusion. Since the cents were struck on planchets of the British halfpenny, the obverse of the latter was adopted without change for the new coins, a further disassociation from the New Brunswick pieces.
But this was how the first obverse dies were made for the silver coins: In the case of each denomination, a positive punch ( intermediate or its "grandfather", a production punch ) of the corresponding New Brunswick coin had NEW BRUNSWICK removed by engraving or grinding and in this state, a negative working or master die was pressed from it. This latter negative die then had the words NEWFOUNDLAND punched into it and could now be used to raise a new positive-relief punch. This would be a true production punch , able to sink a number of master dies , each of which could raise a number of intermediate punches , each of them used to sink a number of working dies . It was the last actually used in the coining presses to strike coins by the thousands per die.
The Newfoundland $2 obverse was simply that of the 10-cent piece.
1. A positive New Brunswick obverse punch 2. had the NEW BRUNSWICK erased
3. and a negative die sunk from it 4. on which was punched NEWFOUNDLAND
The actual process wasn't quite as rigid as this, of course; there were many variations that could be used. Leonard C. Wyon, who was the designer/engraver of these obverses, had already used this conversion method on the New Brunswick silver coins. In that case, Province of Canada 5-, 10- and 20-cent obverses were changed to those of New Brunswick by the above method even though in this particular case, the whole obverse legend was changed to a new one. But the Canada / New Brunswick "conversion" of the reverses wasn't a conversion at all in the case of the 5- and 10-cent pieces; the master dies were used as-is. The reverse of the N.B. 20-cent seems to have been from a rejected Canadian 20-cent pattern.
As the coinage went along, dies became used up and needed replacement, evidenced by the various "Portraits" in the Canada / New Brunswick / Newfoundland series of Victoria . Until about 1892, these seem to consist of a mere "tiddleying-up" of existing punches or negative dies. "Sharpening" a punch results in features shrinking somewhat, of a negative die in a slight enlargement. Sometimes both a punch and its resulting die - or a die and its resulting punch - were cleaned up so that the end result was a design carrying both enlarged and shrunken features.
Despite the various "Portraits", we know that Wyon did not make a new die, negative or positive, from scratch. For a given denomination for a given province, the relationship of the legends to the rim beads never change during Victoria 's reign, a virtual impossibility for a new-from-the-word-go die.
With Wyon's death in 1891, the Royal Mint went "mechanical" with these coins. Whatever "Portrait" was in place by 1892 remained unchanged until the end of the reign, despite larger, more frequent mintages. Apparently the Royal Mint was using the reducing machine to duplicate new master dies or punches from the ones presently in use. And, no, Wyon did not employ the reducing machine to manufacture his first dies for the Canada / N.B./ Newfoundland coinages; the obverses of the 5-, 10- and 20-cents are all slightly different from one another, not just larger and smaller versions. The same can be said for the Canadian 25- and 50-cent obverses of 1870.
With the advent of Edward VII's reign, the Canadian/Newfoundland coins had their designs cut in the appropriate sizes from master models using the reducing machine.
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