Back in the queen's backyard, Marin was in a good mood, and played some restricted games with Countess Angela... Although he didn't eat Angela in the end, it also filled Marin with strength...
The next morning, just after Marin had a late breakfast, a guard came in and reported:
"Report to the Earl, the Passani craftsman you brought back from Milan, please see me!"
"Pasani? The boss who made the screw press?"
Suddenly, Marin reacted and exclaimed in surprise:
"Quick, please bring Mr. Passani in!" Marin finally came to his senses. He knew that Passani probably succeeded in researching the spiral coin minting machine he wanted...
Sure enough, Pasani rushed over and presented a brand new machine-made coin. The machine-made coin it minted was the Imperial Finney. It's just that the Imperial Finney produced by Passani with a spiral minting machine is more exquisite than the ordinary Imperial Finney, and the patterns are carved with a more three-dimensional effect. In short, this fake Imperial Finny is more like the Imperial Finny than the real one...
Moreover, after Passani's introduction, it is very simple to make silver coins in his secret workshop. Prepare the molten metal first, and then cast it into a silver plate. The cast silver plate is thicker than the predetermined thickness, but then it can be stamped again by hand to stamp the silver plate into a suitable thickness.
Afterwards, the craftsman will use a high-carbon steel pipe whose bottom port is ground like a knife edge, hit it with a hammer, and knock a small round silver plate on the silver plate with a sharp bottom circular edge. , about the size of a silver coin, this is the billet. Then, after the silver plate is separated into multiple billets, the remaining scraps continue to be returned to the furnace to make silver plates, and continue to separate the billets...
This process is very simple, and ordinary workers can do it. Only when pressing the silver plate, skilled craftsmen need to pay special attention and control, and the silver plate should not be made too thick, otherwise it will lose money.
After getting the coin billet, the general old method is to find a very skilled old craftsman to hammer out the pattern of the coin by hand and a simple mold. However, this requires high craftsmanship. The treatment of craftsmen with good craftsmanship is not low, and their coinage is not fast. After all, a silver coin takes a long time to hammer.
But after Passani and the others came up with the spiral minting machine, everything was very simple. First of all, the craftsmen installed a fixed upper and lower mold at the bottom of the spiral minting machine. The lower mold is engraved with the mirror groove of the pattern on the reverse side of the coin, and the upper mold is engraved with the mirror groove of the coin's obverse...
Craftsmen only need to lift the upper mold, put the money billet into it, and then cover the upper mold. After that, press the screw pressure rod down by rotating it, and press it hard...
After a while, an exquisitely crafted silver coin was successfully produced. Of course, the premise of this exquisiteness is that the mold made of high carbon steel is well engraved. However, craftsmen such as Pasani have studied for more than a year, and finally solved the problem of high carbon steel mold and the problem of mold fixing. Then, everything becomes simple.
In the past, because the coins were made by hand, it was necessary to use experienced craftsmen to ensure that the coins were not ugly, and it was very time-consuming. But now, with the screw-type minting machine, the production of silver coins does not require skilled craftsmen at all. Because ordinary apprentices can do these things, only skilled workers are required to control the thickness of the silver plate. Other processes, ordinary workers can be competent. In this way, there is no need to use those well-paid skilled craftsmen. It’s just making a coin. Except for making molds and controlling the thickness of the silver plate, other craftsmen who use migrant workers can do it...
Moreover, the manufacturing efficiency of the spiral minting machine is very high. Passani has tested that a spiral minting machine can press 1200 silver coins by working 10 hours a day, an average of 120 silver coins per hour, and one coin is pressed in half a minute on average. And an experienced coinage craftsman, it takes an average of 5 minutes to make a coin billet into a silver coin. not surprising). Even the fastest craftsman needs 3 minutes to make both the front and back of a silver coin. Therefore, the efficiency of the spiral minting machine is 10 times that of ordinary craftsmen, and 6 times faster than the fastest craftsman. Moreover, in the last link of suppressing silver coins, Marin does not need to use high-paid master craftsmen, as long as ordinary workers can be used to complete it. In the entire coinage process, experienced craftsmen are required only to make money molds, control the thickness of the silver plate, and prepare the molten metal for silver coins before coinage. Salary expenses alone can save a lot of money. Moreover, the minting process of the spiral minting machine is ten times happier than that of ordinary craftsmen.
Not only that, the silver coins made by the spiral minting machine are more exquisite than the hand-made coins, and the style is more uniform and beautiful. If you just look at the appearance, the imitation Imperial Finney that Pasani and the others suppressed is more real than the authentic Imperial Finney...
…
Marin was very happy, and announced that he had rewarded Passani and other craftsmen. But he was not happy for a long time, Saxony sent someone over...
It turned out that the Saxons could not sit still immediately after seeing the western part of West Frisia being occupied by the original Frisian noble army.
However, most of their armed forces were captured by Marin, and they could not spare any troops to attack the West Frisian army led by Siwager.
In desperation, the Duke of Saxony had to take out 500,000 gold coins first, planning to redeem 1,000 knights and 3,500 infantry first, to suppress the resistance of the West Frisian nobles...
Marin originally planned to refuse, and he also hoped that Sivager could make the situation in West Frisia more chaotic. However, Emperor Maximilian I sent someone to make peace, and Marin had to give face. So, Marin reluctantly asked the Duke of Saxony to redeem half of the knights and regular infantry... However, when releasing them, Marin sent someone to notify the nine nobles in West Frisia...
Marin was very happy to receive 500,000 gold coins. However, when sending someone to count the currency, Marin was unhappy...
It turned out that the Duke of Saxony mixed a lot of bad coins in the coins...
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 all elected. Therefore, in order to get votes, the emperor opened the door of convenience and gave up a lot of minting rights. Therefore, each of the seven electors has its own minting rights. Even many ordinary principalities and counties also have their own coinage rights. There are only some small vassal states that are too weak to really have the right to mint coins.
Because the minting power is a tool used by the nobles to squeeze the common people. For example, the archbishop of Trier, which is the most tasteless, minted the Finney silver coin, which originally weighed 1.5 grams, to a weight of less than 1 gram. Not to mention, its silver content is only 25%, which is half lower than that of Imperial Finney.
But in the Trier Archbishop's country, the Trier Archbishop arbitrarily demanded that the citizens must use this shoddy Trier Finney as a worthwhile Finney, otherwise they would be punished by law...
Of course, this method is effective in Trier. After leaving Trier, the ghost uses Trier Finney as a full value Finney.
However, building a mint requires a lot of investment. There are hundreds of thousands of coin minters alone. If it is a small country with only a few thousand people, if it is forced to build a mint, the cost may not be recovered. Moreover, even if the coins are minted, they will not be recognized by other countries even if they go out of the country. Therefore, there is no need for a small country that is too weak to have the right to mint coins. These countries generally use coins with good credit such as Imperial Finney and Saxon Finney.
Yes, Saxony Finney is also a very creditworthy silver coin in the empire. As the second largest business district of the Hanseatic League, the Saxon business district naturally has developed trade. As a trading country, the most important thing is of course reputation. Otherwise, in a country without credibility, no businessman is willing to do business with you. Especially in countries that issue bad money indiscriminately, business will definitely not start.
As a commercially developed region, both the Electorate of Saxony and the Duchy of Saxony uniformly use the Saxony Finney with a silver content of 50%, which is the same as the silver content of the Imperial Finney.
Therefore, merchants in Germany also like to use Saxony Finney as a settlement currency. As for bad coins like Trilphin, they are not used, but are exchanged according to their silver content. For example, a Terrier Finney contains only about 0.25 grams of silver. And an Imperial Finney or Saxony Finney, the silver content is as high as about 0.75 grams. Therefore, when exchanging, people basically exchange Imperial Finney and Tril Finney according to the ratio of 1:3. After all, not many people in this world are fools. Trier Finney also exploits and exploits the hard-working Trier people. After leaving Trier, no one will recognize it, or exchange it according to the silver content.
In addition to Trier, there are also many nobles without rank in Germany. Although the silver content of the Finney they cast was not as low as 25%, it was around 30% and 40%, which was lower than the silver content of Imperial Finney and Saxon Finney.
This time, when the Duke of Saxony sent the money, he played tricks and mixed some Finneys that looked more like Saxon Finneys but were actually bad coins minted by other princes into the ransom. The equivalent value is calculated.
At the beginning of the handover, Marin's men were blinded by the people of the Duke of Saxony because there were too many coins and it was too late to identify them one by one, and the handover was completed. Afterwards, Marin couldn't regret it, but he remembered...
"Since you dare to fool me, don't blame me for minting your bad coins to cheat you!" Marin said angrily.
Then, Marin called Kohler and asked him to go to other princes to exchange some bad coins. In addition, go to Bohemia to import a batch of high-purity silver bars to...
The Kingdom of Bohemia is the place with the largest silver production in the Shenluo Empire. Therefore, the silver content of Bohemia's coins is very high, which is higher than that of the Imperial Finney, which can reach 60%. Therefore, the most popular silver coins in the empire were actually produced in Bohemia.
Austria, controlled by the Habsburg family, is the second largest silver producing area in the empire. Therefore, Imperial Finney can cast better quality. However, the population of the Habsburg family is too large and there are many moths, making the emperor very poor even though he is sitting in Austria, which is rich in silver...
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 was naturally used to mint Saxon Finney's bad coins...
However, when Marin minted the bad coins of Saxon silver coins, he didn't intend to let people see the flaws. It is best that people take the bad coins of the Saxon silver coins minted by his Marin seriously. In this way, Marin can quietly accumulate a lot of wealth...
If people can't see the flaws, Marin can be adulterated, but it can't be seen...
For example, the silver content of Saxony Finney is 50%, and Marin must reduce the silver content if it is to be adulterated. However, if the silver content is reduced, it also needs to be done. If copper is added, the density of copper is lower than that of silver. If there is too much copper mixed in, a bad coin of the same size must be lighter than a good coin. People only need to put the bad coins minted by Marin and the genuine Saxon silver coins on the balance to see it.
Therefore, while doping copper, some lead also needs to be doped. Because lead has a higher density than silver. It's just that if there is too much lead mixed in, it is easy to cause the coins to turn black, and you can tell that they are bad coins at a glance. Therefore, lead can be doped, but not too much.
In the end, Marin decided to set the silver content of the inferior Saxony silver coins at 40%, which is 10% less than the genuine Saxon silver coins. The 10% of the weight is adulterated with a mixture of lead and copper to ensure that the bad coins are the same size and weight as the real coins, and the appearance is also invisible.
The ancients did not have any advanced detection methods. As long as the appearance and density are consistent, who can detect it
Then, Marin arranged for craftsmen to engrave Saxon Finney's mold. This time, Marin intends to suppress 500,000 more realistic Saxon Finney coins to test the waters.
Marin made a rough calculation. If the silver content is reduced by 10%, he can get about 8% of the profit regardless of material costs, processing costs, and shipping costs. 500,000 pfennigs can make him a profit of about 40,000 pfennigs. Although there are not many, as long as the start goes well, Marin will continue to do it in the future and create more bad coins of Saxony Finney.
Of course, this is just a test of the water. If the effect is good, Marin intends to continue to suppress more bad Saxony coins and impact the monetary system and economy of the Saxon region. In this way, he can not only seek huge profits for himself, but also attack the Saxons, killing two birds with one stone...