Zain
A zain (formerly also zein or tooth ; ahd. And mhd. Zein "stick", see also tin ) is a bar or rod-shaped metal blank made from a coin metal alloy. Are from the Zain blanks (coin blanks, planchets) for embossing coins produced (see coinage ).
Zaine used to be the starting material for other metal products, such as scythes and nails. Zaine were mostly forged with a Zainhammer (see Zaineisen ).
Making the Zain
In the past, the Zain was usually brought to the desired coin thickness in the hot, but also in the cold state with a hammer and stretching tools or with small to medium-sized hand, göpel or water-powered rolling mills (see Weimar Mint, location and technical equipment after 1674 ) .
Today the Zain is stretched in several fully automatic runs in rolling mills , where it is finally rolled up as a long, narrow Zain sheet strip. With modern multi-layer coins ("sandwich"), several different zinc sheet strips of the same width are finally rolled together under high pressure to form a new, thicker zinc sheet strip and then rolled up again.
Especially for larger medals and coins - with mostly smaller editions - sheet metal plates are often used instead of narrow sheet metal strips (see picture).
Processing of the zain
After the subsequent soft annealing and pickling (which can also be integrated in the rolling process), the coin plates are punched out in a punching machine. Mostly they are adjusted to the target weight before minting - especially with precious metal coins - if necessary polished and provided with marginal writing or ribbing, which used to be done in a mostly hand-operated knurling .
In the Middle Ages and the early modern period, particularly cliff-shaped circular blanks were also cut out of the stretched or rolled claws with the behavior scissors (large, strong tin snips), i.e. not punched out.
Münzbaum instead of Zain
In ancient times and in the KÄSCH coins from (Indo) China, Korea and Japan, a larger number were cast of rounds in the so-called coin tree simultaneously, so that the Zain as Rohstabbarren in the process of coin production was skipped.
Zainende
A Zainende is a misprint sought by numismatists . It can arise if a coin plate was not ejected in time after punching, i.e. it was jammed and was therefore punched again at the edge (see picture). Furthermore, it could also be the last coin in a Zain ribbon, the round blank of which was therefore not completely round before it was minted, but this could also be a subsequent coin trimming. Despite quality controls, such pieces sometimes got into circulation.
Hook
The tine hook was a barbed bar that was used to move the glowing tine before rolling. Zainhaken were a popular mint master mark on coins until the early 19th century, see for example
- Mint master of the Dresden Mint ,
- Mint master of the Bautzen mint ,
- the Weidenbaumtaler from 1627 with the crossed hooks, the coinage of the mint master Georg Kuckenberg (1637–1640) of the Kassel mint,
- mint master Hans Schmidt von Bielefeld, who worked at the Södel mint from 1612 to 1620 , also used this symbol.
literature
- Tyll Kroha: Large encyclopedia of numismatics . Bertelsmann Lexikon Verlag, Gütersloh 1997, ISBN 3-577-10554-2
- Heinz Fengler: Lexicon Numismatics . transpress publishing house for traffic, Berlin 1988, ISBN 3-344-00220-1
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Zahn or Zain. In: Johann Heinrich Zedler : Large complete universal lexicon of all sciences and arts . Volume 60, Leipzig 1749, column 1315.
- ↑ Zain . Duden online; see meaning 2.
- ↑ zain, zein. In: Jacob Grimm , Wilhelm Grimm (Hrsg.): German dictionary . tape 31 : Z-Zmasche - (XV). S. Hirzel, Leipzig 1956 ( woerterbuchnetz.de - see II. (Meaning and use), information under 3)).