“Minting a coin” refers to the process of manufacturing coins in a specialized facility known as a mint.
More specifically, it encompasses the detailed process of transforming raw metal into finished coins, designed for circulation as currency or for collection.
Here’s a breakdown of what “minting a coin” involves:
- Design and Engraving: The coin’s design is created, often beginning with a plaster model and evolving into a three-dimensional rendering. This design is then used to create the dies, which are the metallic pieces that stamp the design onto the blank coins.
- Preparation of Blanks/Planchets: Raw metal (like copper, nickel, or silver) is refined, melted, blended into alloys, cast into ingots, and then rolled to the required thickness for the specific coin denomination. Blanks are punched out of these metal strips, then undergo processes like annealing (heating and cooling to soften the metal) and upsetting (creating the raised rim around the edge), becoming planchets.
- Striking: The planchets are placed into a coining press, where the dies strike them under immense pressure, impressing the design on both sides. Modern presses can strike coins at rates of up to 750 coins per minute, [according to the U.S. Mint].
- Quality Control and Distribution: After striking, the coins are inspected for errors, counted, and bagged or packaged for distribution to Federal Reserve Banks or for sale to collectors.
Why is it called minting coins?
I can help with that. When the Romans conquered Britain in the first century A.D., they took this word with them, and it stuck around. In Old English texts, we find reference to a place where coins were made being called a mynet, which over time evolved into the modern word mint (which has no relation to the mint in a mint julep).
What does mint money mean in slang?
Great question! If you say that someone makes a mint, you mean that they make a very large amount of money. [informal]
Does mint mean new money?
A completely different sort of mint is a place where money is made, or minted. Informally, an enormous amount of money is also a mint: “He inherited a mint and bought a Rolls Royce.” “Mint.” Vocabulary.com Dictionary, Vocabulary.com, https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/mint.