The subject of adjusting gold and silver coin blanks and planchets is not one that comes up often. The entire world of “Lady Adjusters” is one of limited knowledge and obtuse language. “Standards,” “Lights,” “Heavies,” “Collectors” are not routine coin collector terms, and the Adjusting Room was, itself, off limits to most mint personnel. (The best description of adjusting work will be found in my book From Mine to Mint.)
During April 1900, sequestered within the Adjusting Room, plus an adjacent lunch room and lavatory, sixty-two (62) women carefully weighed every gold coin blank and most silver coin blanks. The work was repetitive, tedious, exacting; the room was crowded and often stuffy – windows were always closed to prevent loss of the tiniest fragment of gold. Leather aprons were worn to prevent metal from becoming embedded in clothing, and most ladies wore thin buckskin gloves so gold would not rub off on fingers.
This excerpt from an Adjusting Room work report of the Philadelphia Mint for April shows the number of blanks the ladies handled per day. [The image is supposed to be here, but the SW stuck it at the bottom.
The column titles require a little explanation:
Total Days = Days worked.
Average Planchets = Average per day of all types of planchets handled.
Silver Dollars = Quantity of dollar planchets handled per day this month.
Double Eagles = Quantity of double eagle planchets handled per day this month.
Days D.E. = Number of days working only on double eagle planchets.
Con’d gold per no. = Quantity of gold planchets the adjuster condemned for all reasons per month.
The names are in order of daily average from high to low. As can be seen from the table, Harbison averaged 2,425 planchets during 24 work days and the next highest was Flaherty at 2,239 or almost 200 less per month than the top performer. The lowest performer (number 62, not shown on this page) was Griffitts, with an average of just 720 planchets per day, also for 24 work days.
The overall average was 1,466.2 planchets per adjuster per day.
Data from these reports was used to determine employee retention in the case of furloughs, reductions-in-force, or reassignment to other duty such as counting, press operation, coin inspection and so forth.
[PS: If you enjoyed this little numismatic history lesson, please deposit 50-cents in your computer or iphone coin slot.]