DIE ENGRAVING PRODIGY JOHN GREGORY HANCOCK

Genius can occasionally shine in children whose ages are measured in single digits – Mozart composing and performing from the age of five is perhaps the most widely known. You can google child geniuses and see others. For some reason, John Gregory Hancock did not show up on any of the lists I found but his exceptional talent at the age of seven certainly qualified him to be on the list. Born into a family of engravers including a well known British engraver, Robert Hancock, the young John was exposed to the work and the technology and early in his life produced some amazing copper tokens.

He was also born at a time when coin manufacture changed forever. In 1788 the steam power Matthew Boulton and James Watt harnessed led to the first automatic steam powered coin minting press. It replaced the screw press that required placing a flan on a base with the engraved obverse die, slamming the reverse die down, and then manually removing the piece. This worked pretty well on gold but cold copper was another matter. With the even and powerful steam press it also resulted in an even and powerful impact on the flan.

The result turned into a series of tokens with a remarkable range of designs—buildings, people, animals—an artistic revolution in copper. The pieces in this catalog were carefully selected for their design merit and contemporary significance from different consignments. The Hancock pieces from the Harold Welch collection are the central feature of the offering.

	NBS (coinbooks.org) Web