| Formerly | Royal Persian Mint |
|---|---|
| Company type | State-owned enterprise |
| Industry |
|
| Predecessor | 24 provincial mints[1] |
| Founded | June 14, 1877; 147 years ago (1877-06-14)[2] |
| Founder | Mohammad-Hasan Aminolzarb[3] |
| Headquarters | 191, Pasdaran Ave., |
Area served | Iran |
Key people | Amir Shokri (Director)[4] |
| Products |
|
Production output | 800 million banknotes (2015–16[4]) |
| Parent | Central Bank of Iran (Since September 23, 1962; 61 years ago (1962-09-23))[5] Ministry of Finance (1877–1962) |
| Website | spmo |
Security Printing and Minting Organization (SPMO; Persian: سازمان تولید اسکناس و مسکوک, romanized: sāzmān-e towlid-e eskenās va maskuk, lit. 'Bills and Coins Production Organization')[6] is a subsidiary of the Central Bank of Iran responsible for design, production and elimination of banknotes and coinage in Iran under the exclusive authority.[7]
Founded in 1877 as the sole national mint zarab-khane (zarrabḵana) of Iran, it replaced multiple provincial mints.[8][9] It was constructed at the place of a former cotton factory in northern Tehran, and used French machinery[10] while the original building was built by the Belgians.[11] Senior Münze Österreich official, Franz Pechan von Prägenberg, contributed to technically operate the mint.[12] In 1931, Germans provided the mint with new machinery.[13]
Iranian banknotes were not printed by the organization until 1982;[14] instead they were outsourced abroad to Bradbury Wilkinson and Company, Waterlow and Sons, American Bank Notes Co and De La Rue.[15] Koenig & Bauer reportedly refused to provide the organization with equipment in 2012.[16]
There were twenty-four known copper striking mints: Astarabad, Yerevan, Hamadan, Herat, Isfahan, Kerman, Maragheh, Nishapur, Qazvin, Shabankareh, Shiraz, Soltaniyeh, Tabriz, Yazd, Isfahan, Kashan, Kazerun, Kerman, Lahijan, Mashhad, Qazvin, Rasht and Tehran.
The official, festive inauguration of the Mint took place a year later, on 14 June 1877, when it was officially opened by the shah [Naser al-Din].
Before 1877 each major town had its own mint and the coins produced there could vary 10 per cent or more in weight from the national standard...
The central mint, which replaced the many provincial ones, could now debase the coinage, and thereby provide the government with some extra cash...
These misfortunes delayed for some time the execution of the projected scheme; and it was not till 1877 that the new coinage appeared, a large building on the northern outskirts of Teheran, which had been unsuccessfully tried as a cotton factory, having been converted into the Royal Mint. The establishment, which possesses a German overseer and French dies, and is under control of Amin-es-Sultan, is now the sole mint of Persia.
In addition, the Belgians built a coin mint, or zarrab-khaneh, in Tehran.
Following a formal request for assistance with the improvement of the mint and lengthy negotiations, Franz Pechan von Prägenberg, a high official of the Austrian mint, and a mechanic named Obonya on 13 November 1874 left Vienna for Tehran, where they arrived on 24 January 1875... Fortunately, Obonya was an able and inventive man, and with the help of three other European mechanics passing through Tehran in 1876 he managed to revive the machinery. As a result, the new mint was able to strike new qrans...
The Persian parliament had approved on 16 February 1931 a loan to the ministry of trade and industry to meet the capital expenditure required for the establishment of a mint. The machinery and required equipment for this new mint had been ordered in Germany. Moreover, in February 1931 two German experts were appointed to run the operations of the mint.
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