How Money Is Made: A 1920 Silent Film from the Royal Mint of Canada

“In this factory no samples are given as souvenirs, though the practice would be a very popular one.”

We’ve already seen how money came to rule the world, but how is it actually, physically made? This fascinating vintage silent film from 1920 traces the journey of gold and silver bars, through oil-burning furnaces and heavy rollers and friction-drive presses, to finished coins in the Royal Mint of Canada, “where the metal becomes converted into ‘coin of the realm.’” Bonus points for the endearing attempts at comic relief in the title cards.

In this treasure house of gold and silver they open the doors with a plain iron key.”

Meanwhile, the Royal Mint of Canada has just gotten some beautiful new coins by designer Gary Taxali.

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Tango: The First Polish Short Film to Win an Oscar, 1980

Everything that could happen in a room, happening.

You might recall Blok, a wonderful 1982 experimental Polish animated film, using a single continuous shot to take a voyeuristic tour of the different apartments in a building. From the same era comes Tango — a clever and spectacularly executed 1980 film by director Zbigniew Rybczynski from Polish short-film studio Se-ma-for. The cinematography, capturing multiple events taking place simultaneously in a closed space, was so complicated and required such precision that Rybczynski worked on the film for nearly a year, eating and sleeping on the set.

In 1983, Tango became the first Polish film to win an Oscar.

Tango appears on the altogether excellent two-disc DVD Anthology of Polish Animated Film.

Thanks, Mark

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Gorgeous Vintage Swiss Stamps from the 1940s-1970s

As if you needed another reason to love mid-century Swiss design, here are some gorgeous stamps from the collection of obsessive digital philatelist Karen Horton.

More of the Swiss postage design tradition can be found in Swiss Stamps, La Collection Suisse.

Thanks, Sarah + Alexis

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