RWB

After checking notes and my database, I've begun writing a short chapter on how collectors acquired coins. This varied with the era and economic resources of people. The subject is not covered elsewhere except by peripheral reference. Thank you!

More sources for Carson Mint information, 1865-1897. NARA Record Group 11, Box 2 Carson Box 3 Carson Box 4 Carson Box 5 Carson-Charlotte These are available for viewing or download from the NNP site. (If anyone wants the whole lot at once, I can send them to you via Dropbox. Total zip file size is 3.7 gig.) My book, From Mine to Mint, has floor plans and other information on the Carson Mint, as well as all other US Mints and Assay Offices.

Mints packed DE bags of 250 coins as tightly as they could to avoid movement, and these were put into wood kegs (or boxes) and surrounded with sawdust. Every vibration caused abrasion. Engine vibration of a ship, listing and tossing during an ocean voyage. Every lifting of a bag added more. Add to that the physical counting and weighing in Europe; or repackaging into $25,000 bags. (There was much more physical handling of goods then, than now.)

MTM2 is about technology, machinery, manufacturing, business processes, facilities, etc. rather than the coins. The products of all this - the coins - are important but they are the results, not the "how" of US minting. There are plenty of coin picture books; almost none about how they were made.

Mine to Mint 2 has a similar focus as FMTM, but it is completely new. That is, it is not an "updated, revised, enlarged" edition. There is some subject overlap but not repetition. For example the MTM2 chapter on dies is entirely 18th century technology as applied at the little mint in Philadelphia. Here's a short excerpt from the Engraving Chapter: "The early U.S. Mint needed dies to strike coins, and that required an alloy of iron and carbon, called steel, from which to make dies. Not just any kind of steel would do. It had to be high carbon steel – iron with approximately one percent carbon – and a uniform composition if it was to be both hard and tough. It also had to respond well to annealing and hardening cycles, and have predictable behavior. Carbon made steel hard and uniformity greatly reduced cracking and splitting during heat treatment. "In the 1790s there were only three general types of carbon steel available, although none were what are now considered a uniform or standard alloy." It then explains how the mint blacksmiths made die steel with the tools and materials available to them, and so forth.

That will be part of the pattern & restrike book.

This is a fairly broad subject the core of which I covered in the book Fads, Fakes and Foibles. This has detailed chapters on Barclay's mint experiments, Hubbell's Goloid nonsense. The Mint had no internal investigative staff. Everything was delegated to Treasury investigators and I felt that was beyond the scope of MTM2 - although possibly of individual interest.

The physical manufacture of a pattern piece was identical to ordinary proof coins. Patterns, restrikes and related pieces is an extensive subject. I've been researching this for several years and still do not have a good grasp of the overall subject. Much of the "received wisdom" from experts is bologna decorated with cute ribbons.

Yep. Clerks stacked in piles of 20. "Seriously inaccurate" would be a discrepancy of more that 1/2 coin thickness in a pile (that's how the Mint people defined it). Three part collars had "play" in them that normal reeded collars did not. This produced a different metal distribution resulting in thinner coins at the rim. Solution involved changing the planchet upset angle and improving collar tolerance. (RAC 1905-1908 discusses the different types of mechanical arrangements tested.)

No errors, just a lot of routine, and intentional damage. Your won't see this kind of truthful information in most internet videos. The "authors" are trying to either sell you junk by calling it "errors," or looking for advertising money based on the number of viewers -- aka, "click bait." Every one of them knows what they are doing is dishonest and a lie.

Most of this was covered in FMTM -- I don't want to duplicate material. MTM2 covers different materials and usually from a different era. For example, 18th century US Mint die making is described from the blacksmith's work with iron and steel, including making carbon steel from available materials.

"Stacking" was a complaint everytime a design was changed -- and sometimes during a design, such as the 1878 and 1879 silver dollars. The coins made n ice stable stacks, but they were not the identical height as the old design, therefor requiring closer attention by clerks. Coins from different years of the same design should pile to the same height for 20 pieces.

Good point. I will add that bit.

Both. The silver dominated but there was a fair percentage of gold. It cost more to ship to Carson than SF, and SF could easily handle the refining volume - Carson could not. I'll add that large mine owners did not want payment in coins or bars. SF had authority to issue high value checks or exchange on New York. Carson did not. Mint HQ had to balance all this within the Independent Treasury system. As a practical mint, Carson had no value except political.

The Confident Carson City Coin Collector by Rusty Goe

One of the building photos Mike posted shows Mint employees on the roof, possibly spraying water to prevent damage.

Zebo - Appreciate the cogitation ! Mike - Most of the "Comstock" silver and gold went to San Francisco Mint. I'll take a look and see if there's a story there. Also, I have several of the original inventories and accession documents for the Mint Cabinet. But there is very little of the story behind some of the coins. (The US Mint provides current coins, etc to Smithsonian annually.) I'll take a look - there are a few interesting tales, but they don't really follow the overriding concept of MTM2.)

Looks like Mike has been busy. Usually best to crop these presscopy pages, and use only 1 or 2 per post so they remain readable. There's a lot of Carson Mint material in the Mint archives, but little relating to specific events. (I'm not sure what is in the 3-vol set published a year or so ago, but It might be mostly about specific coins and or newspaper articles.)

Ah, yes! And...every edition had a new version of the sensational story. Plus - there was almost never a by-line. It was fun to sift through all this debris and find the nuggets of truth - at least there were a few of them. The best laughs came from newspaper articles about models for the coins. "Mary Cunningham" worked at that job from 1859 through at least 1916 -- an ever aged a day.

As some members night remember, I am working on a successor book to From Mine to Mint -- this volume is called Mine to Mint 2. Like its predecessor, it concentrates on US Mint equipment, processes, facilities and all the other things that allowed our coins to be manufactured and distributed. For MTM2, I requested topic ideas from coin collectors of all types and specialties, with an emphasis on newer collectors and what they wanted to know more about. Presented below is a draft chapter order organized by topical sections. Almost every chapter is in response to collector questions, including those of several members on this forum. Although it is not possible to post significant details, the subjects should be clear from chapter titles. Most are 19th century, although several go back to the Mint's first decade operation in the 1790s. I would appreciate any helpful comments, missing subjects, suggestions, etc. that members might have. Thanks! RWB

PCGS opened a thread on their message board several months ago announcing a job opening for a photographer. There was negative criticism from members about the low pay, especially for a high-cost area of California. I recall it was well under $100k - which makes living in a cardboard box or a car's back seat one of the housing options. (OK -- that's a small exaggeration.) Many small companies do not realize the total cost of hiring new people versus paying current ones more $$.

I don't know when raised edge lettering or ornamentation was first used. It is used on Oliver Cromwell crowns. The major automation change was Jean-Pierre Droz' six-part collar.

I searched through these manually when I wrote RAC 1905-1908 and used many of the documents; however, copying every page was not feasible back then. Now, they have been digitized and anyone can search from the comfort of their man-cave (or woman-cave). I have not identified any "missed" documents that changed anything. There is much more correspondence about getting the edge collars to work at SF and D.

From: Structural Engineers Association of Northern California [https://legacy.seaonc.org/structure/old-san-francisco-mint/] The Old San Francisco Mint is a three-story brick masonry and stone-clad bearing and shear wall structure that measures approximately 220.5 feet in the north-south direction by 165 feet in the east-west direction. There is a courtyard in the center that measures about 102.5 feet north-south by 43 feet east-west. The building sits on a massive mat-type foundation of unreinforced concrete that is approximately 4 to 4.5 feet thick below the basement level. The average building height from ground level to the roof is 52.5 feet. The first and second floors are constructed of wrought iron beams supported on the masonry walls and cast-iron columns. The floors consist of shallow brick arches with a concrete rubble fill on top spanning between the beams. The floors are typically finished with stone pavers or hardwood floor. The attic floor system is made of shallow, corrugate iron arches with a concrete rubble fill on top. The roof framing includes wrought iron beams and trusses with stacked timber joists and straight timber sheathing, creating the roof diaphragm. There are two large, main chimney stacks on the roof that taper from 12 feet square at the base to 11.5 foot square at the top. These chimneys were originally extended 69 feet above the gable roof. The top 25 feet of both main chimney stacks was clad with ornate cast iron. Each chimney has a central flue and four corner flues. The top 25 feet of the chimneys, including the ornate cast-iron, was removed after sustaining damage in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.

Posted to wrong thread.