The development of the single-arm pantograph is tied up with the history of coinmaking in the 18th century, where earlier machines for making portrait medallions were adapted to the production not only of medals but of dies for coining. This process led to the development of the single-arm pantographic "reducing machine" later associated strongly with the successful machines of Janvier in the 19th and 20th centuries. Unfortunately, histories of coinmaking have tended to conflate the earlier linkage-and-chain medallion lathes with the technologically very different single-arm pantographic reducing engines. Both produced similar products, but they did so by entirely different means. Treating them as a single kind of machine is like claiming that horse-drawn carriages and automobiles are the same because they both carry passengers on roads.
Cooper, in The Art and Craft of Coinmaking, has claimed that "the first pantograph machine nearest in form to the present day reducing machines was made by Dollond in 1743." No details about this machine are available, and while the Dollonds did make pantographs, they had not yet entered professionally into the instrument making business by 1743.
"... the first pantograph machine nearest in form to the present day reducing machines was made by Dollond in 1743, and it has been referred to as the ``singe'', meaning monkey or mimic. These machines were used for copying engraved designs onto softer material than the steel normally used for coining tools." {Cooper 1988}: 164.
He provides no illustration or further information. I do not yet understand the meaning of the final sentence quoted above. If in fact Dollond's 1743 pantograph really was similar to "present day reducing machines" then it was a single-arm machine. But it isn't yet clear what form it took.
Another difficult, though one difficult to argue, is that the surviving pantographs by Dollond all seem to be very lightweight devices intended for drawing. They do not resemble machine tools for engraving.
It is possible that Jean Baptiste Dupeyrat was manufacturing (and exporting from France) single-arm pantographic "reducing machines" for coining from around 1780 to the 1790s. It is equally possible, based on the evidence now known, that he was not and that his reducing machines were based on earlier technologies of medallion lathes employing systems of linkages and/or chains.
Cooper claims that "About 1780 similar [to Dollond's, 1743] machines known as the 'tour à portrait,' or portrait lathe, were introduced into the French Mint in Paris and were being manufactured systematically by Dupeyrat." {Cooper 1988}, p. 164. By "similar," Cooper means similar to Dollond's reducing machine (which he also believes to have been a single-arm pantograph).
Dupeyrat is also cited in {Johnson 2012}, p. 11; this is a ternary source.
{Musson & Robinson 1969}, p. 221, claim that in 1790 Boulton bought from Dupeyrat a "lathe ... which was kind of reducing machine" for the Soho Manufactory's minting operations. Their source for this information is Boulton's correspondence, so the fact of this purchase is secure, but the nature of the machine is unknown.
{Pollard 1971}, p. 311, discusses the Dupeyrat lathe sold to Boulton at greater length, establishing something of its history from extracts from the correspondence between Boulton and Dupeyrat.
Unfortunately, Pollard's discussion of this lathe also illustrates the problems introduced by ignoring the actual techologies of the machines in question. Pollard is writing from the perspective of the history of coinmaking; his article appeared in The Numismatic Chronicle. To a coinmaker, the "modern reducing machine" is a single-arm pantograph of the style strongly associated with the name of Janvier in the 19th and 20th centuries. In his discussion of Dupeyrat's machines, Pollard first writes that "Boulton fully understood the principle of the modern reducing machine, for it was a practical extension of the medallion or portrait lathe, then a fashionable toy." (311) This implies that Dupeyrat's machines operated on the same principles as a Janvier reducing machine. But later Pollard writes that "The type of lathe acquired by Boulton is represented by an exmaple in the Science Museum, London [cited in Pollard's footnote by its inventory number, 1922.265] ... It has been described by George Gentry who dates it to c. 1760." Sci. Mus. Inv. 1922-265 is not a single-arm pantograph. It is a medallion lathe employing linkages and cords; a machine in the same class as those by Nartov and Teubers. Its mechanism is entirely different from the "modern reducing machine."
Regrettably, based on currently available evidence in English, it is impossible to know whether Dupeyrat's lathes for coinmaking in the 1780s were single-arm pantographs or not.
Other information available on Dupeyrat's die-making activities concerns later efforts, in the 1804 timeframe. Here is a brief biographical sketch of him from Spink's Numismatic Circular in 1900. (Clicking on the image will bring up a PDF-format extract of the entire page.)
( {NC 1900}, p. 4174.)
{Cooper 1988} Cooper, Denis R. The Art and Craft of Coinmaking: A History of Minting Technology. London : Spink & Sons, 1988.
{Johnson 2012} Johnson, D. Wayne. ``Art Medal Timeline: Notable Medallic Art Developments.'' MCA Advisory. Vol. 16, No. 6 (November--December 2012): 7--17.
The MCA is "Medal Collectors America."
{Musson & Robinson 1969} Musson, Albert Edward and Eric Robinson. Science and Technology in the Industrial Revolution. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1969.
{NC 1900} Anon. [or the editors?] "Biographical Notices of Medallists." Twenty-ninth Article. Spink & Sons Monthly Numismatic Circular. Vol. 8, No. 94 (September 1900): 4174 [entry for Dupeyrat].
This has been digitized by Google from the Princeton University copy (ID: McVLAAAAYAAJ) and the University of Michigan copy (ID: CAorAAAAMAAJ). The extract here is from the former.
{Pollard 1971} Pollard, J. G. "Matthew Boulton and the Reducing Machine in England." The Numismatic Chronicle. Seventh Series, Vol. 11 (1971): 311-317. Royal Numismatic Society
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