Vickers Tester

[Mister T]

Nice find - is this from the Royal Mint's scans?

[nealeffendi]

The inference being that until 1935 they had no Vickers tester and furthermore until then they had no definitive method to test hardness? Does that also mean that the other testing methods or devices that existed at that time such as the Rockwell were not at the mint?
Does it mean that the 1919 and 1920 dots were not caused by a hardness test? Or that they were a crude non definitive hardness test perhaps caused by whacking a punch with a hammer?

[fred lever]

I'll bet Stokes and Sons at Melbourne  had hardness testers well before the Melbourne Mint did!
Being coin makers from the 1800's and into the 1900's.
Probably the MM guys popped over to S&S every now and then and borrowed a centre punch and hammer and a bit of know how.
OK, only stirring,  but what a Mint Master in an empire branch reports in a yearly roundup to Sir in Pommy land has very little to do with what happened in the foundry and press shop.
Fred.

[gnome61]

Thanks Mr T, yes it is, there is a whole lot of interesting information available in them if you didn't have access to any old reports before. Well they are things of interest to me anyway, that have answered a few questions. Sadly I feel the time has come to cease sharing these interesting pieces and just leave things to the experts who know better. Apologies for my inconsideration and thoughtlessness, won't happen again.   Still have a lot of reading to do and the reports go from 1870 to 1967 Really need to be an accountant to make some sense in places.

[Basilstate]

Thanks Mr T, yes it is, there is a whole lot of interesting information available in them if you didn't have access to any old reports before. Well they are things of interest to me anyway, that have answered a few questions. Sadly I feel the time has come to cease sharing these interesting pieces and just leave things to the experts who know better. Apologies for my inconsideration and thoughtlessness, won't happen again.   Still have a lot of reading to do and the reports go from 1870 to 1967 Really need to be an accountant to make some sense in places.

Throw up your findings/research gnome,this Forum will be fine,your entitled to your opinion the same as everyone else and you may stumble across facts others have missed/disregarded/misinterpreted.

One thing you have to keep in mind are Records from the Mints in the early days are notoriously inaccurate or plain just falsified to keep the bosses,both here and in the UK,happy.

[fred lever]

Hi Gnome, I second Basil!
Please keep reading and sharing.
The old records need airing for the many people that have not had the opportunity to read them.
As a self appointed "expert" I have trawled many old records tracing down the fables and myths to do with commonwealth coinage.
Any comment I made in this thread is just a reflection of this hobby and in no way "having a go" at you.
Time and memory loss get at all of us when recalling a fact about a subject, just ask Basil!
Even now you have remined me about the subject of hardness testers at the Melbourne mint and the source of a mention.
We all need as much help as we can get.
Thanks.
Just keep your  observations coming please you never know how one little mention "clicks" with someone about some subject even if not apparent.

Cheers, Fred.

[Basilstate]

Thanks Fred,i think.lol,yes Gnome has to keep going and post on here,you never know what he might come across.

All the research from the 1960's(and earlier) is out there somewhere,it seemed to disappear and also in the 1970's+ be discredited in some cases.