The Polish Mint official arrived at The Mint on October 29 and was received with less than good grace. It would appear that officials of the company in Birmingham felt that they had done a good job, and the Poles were nit-picking for no good reason.
After checking the coins on hand at Birmingham, the special representative did recommend that the 800,000 already on hand in Warsaw be released in due course, but not until mixed with better struck coins from a later shipment. Another 400,000 were then sent to Warsaw, making 1.2 million now on hand in the Polish capital. The later coins were made from dies polished in a much better manner than before.
On November 3, Warsaw Mint Director Aleksandrowicz wrote Deputy Master Johnson stating that the Royal Mint should never have passed the Birmingham coinage because of the poor quality. The Poles were especially irritated about the porosity of the pieces and the die polishing.
Johnson replied on November 7 that he had not been pleased with the dies provided by Paris and that the Warsaw prototypes had been much better looking. He considered the furnished dies much too flat and had suggested at the time that they would not produce good coins. Johnson also noted that ‘consignments 8 and 9’ of the Birmingham coinage (568,000 pieces) had not been accepted by the Royal Mint inspector.
It was pointed out to Aleksandrowicz that the Polish Legation had been kept informed of the problems and had passed the first delivery of coins. Johnson did concede
