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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;GDJMSP, post: 3223284, member: 112&quot;]As John, messydesk, explained above there were several people who experimented with milled coinage for some time prior to the French mint adopting and switching over to the process. And there were probably several more than those he mentioned.</p><p><br /></p><p>Milled coinage was not something that just came along out of the blue one day. You first have to remember that for 2,000 years everybody had minted coins basically the same way - the hammered method. That was what they knew, what had always been, and change, or acceptance of change, was not something that came quickly. And there was a whole lot more to the hammered method than some guy sitting at a block of wood and and striking coins.</p><p><br /></p><p>In the book I helped write, <i>Gold Ducats Of The Netherlands</i>, the entire process of the hammered method from beginning to end, from how the raw materials were obtained to how coins were distributed into circulation, is described in great detail. It covers literally everything from how one obtained the right to mint coins to the laws that governed minting coins, to the mixing of the alloys to the desired fineness, the tolerances allowed, the cutting of the planchets by hand, all the testing of the alloys both before and after striking, even the punishment/s administered for not following the laws.</p><p><br /></p><p>There is just so much that the average collector does not know about all of this. They have no idea how many people worked in a mint, how many different jobs there were, and how extremely complicated the whole process was. </p><p><br /></p><p>It was all of this and more that made switching over to the entirely new process of milled coinage such a huge step. Basically Louis XIII was hanging his very crown, risking his entire Kingdom on making this change. But he made it, and the entire world soon followed in his footsteps.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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