Chapter 299： Mint bad coins

When I returned to the Queen's backyard, Marin was in a good mood and played a limited game with Countess Angela ... Although Angela was not eventually eaten, Marin was full of strength ...

The next morning, just after Marin had a late breakfast, the guards came in to report:

报告 "Report to Lord Earl, see the Pasani artisans you brought back from Milan!"

"Passani? The boss who made the screw press?"

Suddenly, Marin reacted and cried in surprise:

"Hurry up, please invite Mr. Passani!" Marin finally reacted, and he knew that Passani might have successfully researched the spiral coin machine he wanted ...

Sure enough, Passani came over and presented a new mechanism coin. The minted mechanism coin is the Empire Finney. It is just that the empire finney made by Passani with a spiral coin minter is more exquisite than the ordinary empire finney, and the pattern is carved more three-dimensionally. In short, this fake Imperial Finney is more like an Imperial Finney than a real Imperial Finney ...

Moreover, after Passani introduced, it is now very simple to make silver coins in his secret workshop. The molten metal is prepared first, and then cast into a silver plate. The cast silver plate is thicker than a predetermined thickness, but after that, it can be manually punched again to punch the silver plate into a suitable thickness.

After that, the craftsman will use a high-carbon steel pipe whose bottom port is sharpened like a knife edge on one side of the port, beat it with a hammer, and use a sharp round bottom edge to knock a small round silver plate It is about the same size as a silver coin. This is the bill. Then, after the silver plate separated a plurality of blanks, the remaining scraps continued to be manufactured in the furnace, and the blanks continued to be separated ...

This process is very simple, and most workers can do it. Only when pressing silver plates, skilled craftsmen need to pay special attention and control. They can't make the silver plate too thick, otherwise they will lose money.

After getting the bill, the general old method is to find a very skilled old craftsman, and use the manual method and simple mold 捶 to play the coin figure. However, this requires high craftsmanship. And craftsmen with good craftsmanship are not low, and they are not quick to make coins. After all, a silver coin takes a long time to beat.

After Passani made the spiral coin machine, everything was simple. First, the craftsmen installed a fixed upper and lower mold on the bottom of the spiral coin machine. The mold on the bottom is engraved with a mirrored groove on the reverse side of the coin, and the mold on the top is engraved with a mirrored groove on the front of the coin ...

The craftsmen just lifted the upper mold, put the bills in it, and covered the upper mold. After that, press the spiral pressure lever down to press hard ...

After a while, a silver coin with exquisite workmanship was successfully created. Of course, this delicate premise is that the mold made of high carbon steel is well carved. However, after researching for more than a year, artisans such as Passani finally solved the problem of high carbon steel molds and the problem of mold fixing. Then everything becomes simple.

In the past, because the coins were made by hand, to ensure that the coins were not ugly, we must use experienced craftsmen, and it was time-consuming. But now, with the spiral coin machine, there is no need for experienced craftsmen to make silver coins. This is because ordinary apprentices can do these things, and only skilled workers are required to control the thickness of the silver plate. For other processes, ordinary workers are competent. In this way, there is no need to use high-paid experienced craftsmen. It's just to make a coin. In addition to the high requirements for making molds and controlling the thickness of silver plates, other artisans who use civilian workers can ...

Furthermore, the manufacturing efficiency of the spiral coin minting machine is very high. Passani has tested that a spiral coin machine that works for 10 hours a day can suppress 1200 silver coins, an average of 120 silver coins per hour, and an average of half a minute. On the other hand, an experienced coinmaker crafts a silver coin into silver coins. It takes an average of 5 minutes and 10 hours a day to build 120 coins. It's not unusual). Even the fastest craftsman takes 3 minutes to build the front and back of a silver coin. Therefore, the efficiency of the spiral coin machine is 10 times that of ordinary craftsmen, and 6 times faster than the fastest craftsman. Moreover, in the last step of suppressing silver coins, Marin does not need to use high-paid master craftsmen, as long as it uses ordinary workers. In the entire coinage process, only the production of money molds and the control of the thickness of silver plates, as well as the preparation of metal melts for silver coins before coinage, require the use of experienced craftsmen. Wages alone can save a lot of money. What's more, the minting process of the spiral coin minting machine is ten times happier than the average craftsman.

Not only that, silver coins made with spiral coin machines are more exquisite than hand-made coins, and their styles are more uniform and beautiful. If you only look at the appearance, the imitation empire Finney they have suppressed is more true than the authentic empire Finney ...

Uh ...

Marin was so happy, he announced that he had rewarded a craftsman such as Passani. But he wasn't happy for a long time, and someone from Saxony ...

It turned out that the Saxons could not sit still after seeing the western Frisian land occupied by the original Frisian noble army.

However, most of their armed forces were captured by Marin, and they could not extract their forces to attack the West Frisian army led by Siwag.

In desperation, the Duke of Saxony had to first take out 500,000 gold coins and plan to redeem the 1,000 knights and 3500 infantry first to suppress the resistance of the West Frisian nobles ...

Marlin had originally intended to refuse, and he also hoped that Swagg could make West Frisian's situation more chaotic. However, Emperor Maximilian I sent people to make peace, Marin had to give face. So Marin reluctantly asked the Duke of Saxony to redeem half of the knights and regular infantry ... but when released, Marin sent someone to inform the nine nobles of West Frisian ...

I received 500,000 gold coins, and Marin was very happy. However, when sending someone to count the currency, Marin was not happy ...

It turned out that the Duke of Saxony was mixed with many bad coins in the coins ...

劣 These bad coins were not minted by the Principality of Saxony, but by some shameless other nobles. The coinage system of the Holy Roman Empire was very chaotic. The previous generations of emperors were elected. Therefore, in order to get the ballots, the emperor opened the door of convenience and gave away a lot of coinage rights. Therefore, each of the seven electors has its own coinage right. Even many common principalities and ruling nations have their own coinage rights. There are really no coinage, only some small princely countries whose instances are too weak.

Because, coinage is a tool used by the nobles to crush the people. For example, the most trivial Archbishop of Trier minted less than 1 gram of Finney silver coins, which originally weighed 1.5 grams. This doesn't count, its silver content is only 25%, which is half lower than that of Empire Finney.

But in the country of the Archbishop of Trier, the Archbishop of Trier has arrogantly demanded that the people must use this inferior Trier Finney as a full value Finney, otherwise they will be punished by law ...

Of course, this method is effective in Trier. Out of Trier, the ghost used Trier Finney as a full value Finney.

However, building a mint requires a lot of investment. It would cost hundreds or thousands of coins only. If it is a small country, there are few thousands of people. If you forcibly set up a mint, you may not be able to recover the cost. Moreover, even if coins were minted and went out of the country, other countries would not recognize it. Therefore, it is not necessary for a small country that is too weak to have coinage rights. These countries generally use credits such as Empire Finney and Saxony Finney.

Yes, Saxony Finney is also a very good credit in the Empire. As the second largest business district of the Hanseatic League, the Saxony business district naturally has developed trade. As a trading country, the most important thing is of course credibility. Otherwise, in a country without credibility, no businessman is willing to do business with you. Especially in countries that spawn bad currency, business is definitely not up.

As a commercially developed region, no matter whether it is the Saxony electorate or the Principality of Saxony, Saxony Finney with a silver content of 50% is uniformly used, as is the silver content of Imperial Finney.

Therefore, in the German region, businessmen also like to use Saxony Finney as the settlement currency. As for bad money like Trier Finney, it is not used, but it is exchanged according to the silver content. For example, a Trier Finney contains only about 0.25 grams of silver. An empire fenny or saxony fenni contains about 0.75 grams of silver. Therefore, when redeeming, people basically redeem Empire Finney and Trier Finney at a ratio of 1 to 3. After all, not many people in this world are fools. Trier Finney, who exploited the hard-working Trier people, came out of Trier and no one recognized it, or exchanged it according to the silver content.

In addition to Trier, there are many nobles in Germany in Germany. Although, the silver content of the fenny they cast is not as low as 25%, but it is also about 30% and 40%, which is lower than the silver content of Imperial Fanny and Saxony Finney.

This time, when the Duke of Saxony sent the money, he played with his heart, and some of the shapes were similar to Saxony Finney, but in fact, the Finney minted by other vassal states was also included in the ransom. The equivalent value is calculated.

At the beginning of the transfer, because Marin's men had too many coins and could not identify them one by one, they were blinded by the Duke of Saxony and completed the transfer. Afterwards, Marin was not easy to regret, but he wrote down ...

既然 "Since you dare to fool me, don't blame me for minting your bad money to pit you!" Marin said angrily.

Then, Marin called Kohler and asked him to go to other vassal states to exchange some bad coins. In addition, go to Bohemia to import a batch of high-purity silver bars ...

王国 The Kingdom of Bohemia is the place with the most silver production in the Holy Roman Empire. Therefore, the Bohemian coin has a high silver content, which is 60% higher than that of the imperial Finney. Therefore, the most popular silver coins in the empire are actually produced by Bohemia.

Austria, controlled by the Habsburgs, was the second largest silver producing region in the Empire. Therefore, Empire Finney can be cast well. It's just that the Habsburgs have a large population and a large number of roundworms, which makes the emperor poor even if he owns silver-rich Austria ...

In this era, in addition to using bohemian silver coins, people also like to use bohemian silver bars made of pure silver as a means of settlement for bulk trade. And many princes also like to import bohemian silver bars to mint bad coins ...

Marin's import of Bohemian silver bars this time is naturally used to mint the bad money of Saxony Finney ...

Alas, Marin did not intend to let people see the flaw when he minted the bad currency of the Saxon silver coin. At best, people use the bad money of the Saxon silver coin minted by him. In this way, Marin can quietly gather a lot of wealth ...

想 If you want to make people not see the flaws, Marin can adulterate it, but you can't see it ...

For example, ~ www.novelhall.com ~ Saxony Finney has a silver content of 50%. If Marin wants to adulterate, it must reduce the silver content. However, it is necessary to reduce the silver content. If copper is added, copper has a lower density than silver. There is more copper added. Coins of the same size are definitely lighter than regular coins. People just put the bad coins minted by Marin and the authentic Saxon silver coins on the balance, and they can see it.

Therefore, while doping copper, you also need to dope some lead. Because lead has a higher density than silver. However, if lead is added too much, it will easily cause coins to become black. Therefore, lead can be doped, but not more.

In the end, Marin decided to set the silver content of the bad coins of Saxony to 40%, which is 10% less than that of genuine Saxons. The 10% weight is adulterated with a mixture of lead and copper to ensure that the size and weight of the bad and genuine coins are the same, and the appearance is not visible.

The ancient people did not have any advanced detection methods. As long as the appearance and density were consistent, who could detect them?

Then Marin arranged for artisans to carve out Saxony Finney's molds. This time, Marin intends to suppress 500,000 pieces of more realistic Saxony Finney coins to try water.

Marin made a rough calculation. If you reduce the silver content by 10%, aside from material costs, processing costs, and shipping costs, he will probably get a profit of 8%. 500,000 finneys will make him profit about 40,000 finneys. Although not many, as long as the start is smooth, Marin will continue to do so in the future to create more bad money in Saxony Finney.

Of course, this is just a test of the water. If the effect is good, Marin also intends to continue to suppress more bad Saxon coins and impact the monetary system and economy of the Saxony region. In this way, not only can he make huge profits for himself, but he can also attack the Saxons, killing two birds with one stone ...