News — Royal Australian Mint

In minting, coining or coinage is the process of manufacturing coins using a kind of stamping which is now generically known in metal working as "coining".

This process is different from cast coinage, and can be classified in hammered coinage or hammering and milled coinage or milling.

A coin die is one of the two metallic pieces that are used to strike a coin, one per each side of the coin. A die contains an inverse version of the image to be struck on the coin.

Striking a coin refers to pressing an image into the blank metal disc, or planchet, and is a term descended from the days when the dies were struck with hammers to deform the metal into the image of the dies.

Modern dies made out of hardened steel are capable of producing many hundreds of thousands of coins before they are retired and defaced.