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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Sovereign, post: 26038125, member: 19847&quot;]Yes the articles will cover all branch mints, Sydney / Melbourne / Perth / Ottawa / Bombay / Pretoria.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>I too have read this, and it does put the timing somewhere after 1851 for the Royal Mint, but it has been almost impossible to fix a precise year. Clues found suggest it wasn&#039;t possible to use a screw type press to get enough pressure for the legend to be struck on the master die, so these needed to be punched on to the working dies.</p><p><br /></p><p>In 1851 the Royal Mint purchased a steam hammer which could in theory allow for all elements (excluding date) to be punched into the master die. Looking at many sovereigns its difficult to nail down a specific change in the process until 1864. </p><p><br /></p><p>The only photo of a Victorian matrix / working die is a Young Head St George Dragon reverse proof, supplied to me by the Mint Museum, and that has the legend on the master. Mint records do say that the resident engraver was no longer needed in 1879 as all legends were now done on the matrix.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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