SAVING COPPER

Wairarapa Times-Age, 26 May 1942, Page 4

SAVING COPPER

WAR TIME COINAGE CHANGES IN BRITAIN. MANY WOMEN WORKING IN MINT Women are making coins in Britain’s Royal 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 newly-minted coins are spread out for inspection. Then- the women went to the 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 their 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 year. 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 about 150,000,000 of them in circulation, compared with about 3,000 million bronze coins and 1,350 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 if*Was received as a great curiosity, and millions went out of circulation to collectors. ?