Description:The MB [Matthew Boulton] Mint Company was solely owned by the Boulton family and based at the Soho Manufactory. Apart from making coins, tokens and medals in their own Mint, they exported mint machinery of their own design to many parts of the world, e.g. Russia, Mexico and India. The machinery was, however, mostly made in the Soho Foundry by the Boulton and Watt firm, subcontractors to the MB Mint Co. The Soho Mint was demolished in the early 1850s and one coining press was purchased at the 1850 sale by James Watt and Co of the Soho Foundry, successors to Boulton and Watt (despite the name - no link with the Watt family).
Over the decades the patterns of all the mint machinery had, however, been stored in the Foundry Patterns Stores. In 1860 James Watt and Co decided to unlock the technological investment in these patterns by setting up their own mint at the Foundry to take advantage of growing foreign markets for the supply of coins. Twelve new presses were made with the attendant machinery for rolling, cutting-out, shaking and drying, and milling. A new building was constructed on land to the south of the main Foundry building with its back to the line of the Birmingham Canal cut in the 1820s by Thomas Telford. The old line of the canal had been filled in and eventually taken into the Foundry site.
To prevent confusion with the Soho Mint at the Manufactory this building has been called the ‘Soho Foundry Mint’. It operated for a few decades using 60-year old Boulton technology but when W & T Avery purchased the Foundry in 1895, the firm quickly stripped out the interior of the building and converted it into its Smithy. This is the building that stands today, but once again devoid of any machinery. Excavations in 2000, however, discovered that below the floors the archaeology of the mint was more or less intact. Although the building has been much altered, it is probably the only standing structure in this country that once contained a Boulton mint; it has, therefore, been saved from demolition.