Faking it Help Mint Warden Isaac Newton take on the counterfeiters Sir Isaac Newton by Sir Godfrey Kneller BT © National Portrait Gallery, London This activity… Suggestions for use Supports: The resource is an art & design activity KS2 Art & Design, History that also involves historical role play. Helps pupils to: After learning about Mint Warden Issac Practice investigating, Newton and his mission to bring coin recording and adapting their work as they learn counterfeiters to justice, pupils take on the role of his spy, charged with learning Key Stage 2 about different visual and tactile elements. about counterfeiting and infiltrating the Art & Design criminal network of the notorious coin This activity Develop their design forger William Chaloner. is designed to vocabulary. follow a visit to the Tower’s Use this activity to: Coins & Kings Practice drawing freely – exhibition or coins, shapes, objects etc. the intro lesson: Introduce pupils to the Mint at the Minted: Making Tower in the 1690s during the Great the nation’s Explore the work of coin- coins at the makers and criminals from Recoinage and explain the reasons why Tower the 1690s and consider the the counterfeiting of coins was such a impression the monarch problem. wished to make through his image and coins. Help pupils evaluate coins as designed objects, considering their purpose, Requires: aesthetics, materials, manufacture and PowerPoint projector or audience. interactive whiteboard. Provide reference and stimulus for Printing pupil worksheets and relevant slides. research and for practicing various drawing techniques as pupils examine Supplies and materials for coins from Newton’s time. drawing coins. Encourage pupils to reflect on and share Coins & Kings Schools resources their work with one another, and develop strategies for creating an accurate copy. Go further with the Mint... Show pupils how coins were designed An introduction to the Mint and more and made at the Tower. Explore the activities tailored for the primary curriculum. activities and tools of the Mint and counterfeiters and draw comparisons. More Key Stage 2 activities Pull the project together in a final task Minted! Making the nation’s where pupils submit an accurate copy coins at the Tower of London designed to gain Chaloner’s trust. Introduction resource This PowerPoint Explore what happened to Chaloner as resource helps you a result of his life of crime. Consider why tell the story of the the country had such harsh punishments Mint at the Tower so for counterfeiting. your pupils have a good understanding Extension: Adapt the resource or lesson before they arrive. to include clay and engraving. Stories from Mint Street Power Each slide provides English Point additional activity ideas and These short creative notes historical background on writing tasks help counterfeiting and Newton. pupils use the Mint’s settings, people and history as inspiration for writing their own Background and notes stories. Teachers notes (below) • An introduction to the value of coins What was life like for people at the • How coins were made at the Tower of Mint in Tudor times? London History • How to read old coins Pupils examine • Pupil worksheet: An engraver’s primary sources to planner see what they can Tower of London school visits learn about the lives of people at the Mint Planning a visit: A teacher’s guide in Tudor times. History at the Tower More good coin links Find all resources at hrp.org.uk/towerlearning Royal Mint Museum education & learning ‘How the UK’s coins are made and what they are made of’, www.telegraph.co.uk 23 July 2011 Coins & Kings © Historic Royal Palaces and the Royal Mint Museum Schools resources Background notes The history of the Mint offers durability than for their valued content. an engaging way to explore the However, for centuries, coins were made from precious metals such as gold, silver or copper concepts of currency, value and alloy. Consequently, a coin’s size was the main exchange. indicator of its monetary value. Larger coins (in either thickness or diameter) were worth An introduction Today, we take for granted that money is more because they contained more gold or exchanged in the form of banknotes, coins and, silver. Coin users would have been familiar to the value of increasingly, electronic payments. However, with the various sizes in circulation and would history has shown that money can come in a have recognised a shilling or sixpence, for coins number of guises. Different cultures in the past example, by sight rather than by reading the have used various items as units of exchange: denominations. for example, cows, goats, peppercorns and grain have all been used as money. Cowrie The range of coin sizes, weights and values shells, valued for their beauty and rarity, were were fixed by an official mint, which was one of the most widely and longest used where the quality of the country’s coinage was currencies in history having been used in Africa, controlled in the name of the monarch. The China and India. Money can be any object that involvement of royal authority in coin-making is generally accepted as payment for goods and was crucial, as it made a coin something more services and for the repayment of debts. than simply a piece of silver or gold bullion. Coins were minted (and still are) with portraits Describing coins Coins were the principal form of money of British kings or queens as a symbol of the (useful defining features) throughout Britain and Europe for centuries. monarch’s authority, and as a sign that the coins Durability and portability meant coins usefully were ‘legal tender’. Tampering with coinage, • A coin is an object with two performed the common functions of money therefore, became a state matter and could sides. required in a market-based economy. People carry severe penalties. Backed by the monarch’s • Coins are small and easy to realised that, compared to other assets, coins authority, such measures and controls helped carry. were easy to save and allowed them to store establish public trust and confidence in the • UK coins have the monarch’s wealth. Coins were also a convenient medium country’s coins, an essential ingredient in a portrait on one side. of exchange and became the expected way to functioning economy. It is also why the mint is • Most coins have inscriptions as pay for goods. Furthermore, they were useful known today as the Royal Mint. well as designs. as a measure of value. People could use them • Coins often depict symbols to make value comparisons between different that say something about the goods, such as cattle and grain. monarch or the country. • Coins are used by everyone to Importantly, coins were valued because they buy everyday things. were made from a sought-after commodity: precious metal. Today, coins are made of For a short introduction to coins, see: hardwearing metals, chosen more for their Andrew Burnett, Interpreting the Past: Coins, British Museum, 1991. Coins & Kings Schools resources • Bullion (in precious metal or coins) arrives at the Mint • An assay sample of metal is How coins taken to test purity of the bullion were made at Hammering • Metal is melted, alloyed and cast into ingots the Tower of • Ingots are rolled or flattened into sheets London • Blanks are cut For centuries, coins were • Edges of the blanks are made by manually hammering smoothed • Coins are struck with a a coin blank between two dies. hammer • Coins are blanched (cleaned Producing coins in bulk made Edward I groat, 1279 using a mild acid wash) it possible for the Mint to • Coins are checked for generate a profit (which went fineness, size, striking quality to the monarch). The difference • Coins are tallied and given to between the face value of a client or buyer coin and its production cost was called ‘seigniorage’. • Bullion arrives at the Mint Charles II In the 1660s, under Charles II, • Metal is melted down Petition Crown, Milling 1663 the Mint adopted new methods • An assay sample is taken already in use on the Continent. • Ingots are cast in sand moulds Hand-operated screw presses • Metal is rolled flat using horse could make beautiful coins very power quickly. • Blanks are cut • Edges of coin are decorated The machine-struck coins were using new technology intended to foil counterfeiters. Mint thicker and more regular than employees swear an oath of the old hammered ones, which secrecy not to reveal details of helped combat counterfeiters the invention and clippers, alongside other • Blanks are weighed and tested innovations such as specialist • Coins are struck with screw edge marking. press • Blanks are blanched, cleaned and dried with sawdust Coins & Kings • Coins are counted, scrutinised Schools resources and weighed Coins & Kings How to read old coins Schools resources Inscription Date or Heads (or obverse) is ‘King of Great Symbols Britain, France mintmark the traditional place Shields, regal and Ireland’, Dates were not to find information animals (thus written in Latin. written on coins ‘tails’) or other The monarch’s until the Tudor about the monarch symbols often title is a display period. Previously featured. Lions of authority. The coins used who issued a were symbols reverse of older mintmarks, little of English coins (dating back symbols which coin, including royalty; ships to the Tudors) identified who signified military typically held a made a coin and the portrait and prowess; crowns religious Latin when. The marks titles. represented motto such as ‘I were important kingship and have made God so that makers of crosses signified my helper’. faulty coins could religious be brought to devotion. account. William III sixpence 1696 Legend The monarch’s Regnal Latin name Portrait number appears on all All medieval The regnal number British coins (save kings had the of monarchs Tails (reverse) for some early same portrait.