WOMEN COIN MONEY

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 05, Issue 56, 22 May 1942, Page 5

WOMEN COIN MONEY

-o. — AND SAVE BRITAIN'S COPPER PENNIES FOR BOMBS Women are making coins in Britain's Roj r al Mint for the first time in its centuries of history. Now numbering nearly a quarter of the total workpeople they have learnt the process of coining backwards. First they were put on the "overlooking" machine, with its slowly moving belt on which the newlyminted coins are spread out for inspection. Then the women went to the pressers, which in one operation impress the blank coinage on both sides and, in some coins, mill round the edge. A. coin which is helping to win the war is the 12-sided threepenny piece of nickel-brass. It contains less than a quarter of the metal in three pennies, and tlieir copper is needed for munitions. No> pennies have been struck for United Kingdom use since June 1940, which at that time meant a saving of over 800 tons of copper a j r ear. But last year saw the minting of 60,000,000 nickel-brass threepennies, the highest total in any year since they were first issued in 1937, when 45 million were struck. In 1938, 15 million were issued; in 1939, 5,600,000 and in 1940, 13,000,000. There are now nbout 150,000,000 of them in circulation. compared with about 3,000 million bronze coins and 1350 million silver coins. The brass threepenny was given its distinctive shape and size because the new coin had to be larger than the tiny silver threepenny, which was becoming unpopular, yet had to be sharply differentiated from the larger coins. When first issued it was received as a great curiosity, and millions went out ol circulation to collectors.