Ancient to modern and in between...although it is a small little book, it packs a lot of info in it and covers many of the different historical methods, from hammering to modern presses and many in between as well as photos, diagrams of different old style presses and how mints were set up at different times in history. Nice little book. I had hoped it would be more of a 'how to' to do it yourself minting but I am not at all disappointed that it turned out to be a history of minting through the ages....even my wife who isnt into coins at all started reading it and enjoyed it and was impressed at how much info was packed into such a small book and loved the old illustations, photos and diagrams.