IN PURSUIT OF PERFECTION THE CROWN PIECE OF 1818
Recently arrived at the Royal Mint on Tower Hill in 1818, the engineer George Rennie saw the production problems relating to the crown piece at first hand and would have been fully involved in solving them. In the letters that he wrote to his old employer, Matthew Robinson Boulton, he described a situation in which to his mind the Master of the Mint, William Wellesley Pole and the artist Benedetto Pistrucci were being wilfully heedless of the practical advice of those around them. As a newcomer to the Mint he saw affairs at Tower Hill with the sort of dispassion that makes him a refreshingly candid witness. Rather helpfully he described the method by which the crown pieces were made.
Every planch[et] is to be prepared for the dye intended to strike it by giving the impression of the reverse on one side and
