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Women at Work: Meet the Mint’s Female Trailblazers ----- "The adjusting room"

1630Boston1630Boston Posts: 13,774 ✭✭✭✭✭


Life as an Adjuster
In the Adjusting Room, adjusters sat at long tables and each had an assay scale and a file. The women often wore short sleeves to minimize brushing metal dust onto the floor, and a leather apron attached to the table to catch any metal that did fall. They socialized as they worked, since the Adjusting Room was separated from the noise involved in the rest of the coin production process.

The Adjusting Room was poorly ventilated, with all doors and windows tightly shut, as any air current affected the accuracy of the scales. Because this made for very uncomfortable work conditions, the women took breaks throughout the day to open windows. In comparison to the textile mills and other factories that were the dominant employers of women in the 19th century, the Mint supplied a relatively safe and social place for women to work.

Adjusting Room at the Philadelphia Mint. From Gleason’s Pictorial Drawing Room Companion, 1852.

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    johnny9434johnny9434 Posts: 27,700 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Ya gotta love the education one gets around here 👍

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    PerryHallPerryHall Posts: 45,622 ✭✭✭✭✭

    That has to be a mind-numbing job. Sort of like professional graders grading an unending supply of monster boxes of ASE's.

    Worry is the interest you pay on a debt you may not owe.

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    jacrispiesjacrispies Posts: 758 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Those are some large dresses! They were probably playing footsie all day under those small tables. Very tedious job, much respect goes out to those women!

    "But seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you" Matthew 6:33. Young fellow suffering from Bust Half fever.
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    kruegerkrueger Posts: 813 ✭✭✭
    edited January 26, 2024 4:57PM

    Hard to tell adjustment marks from roller counting machine marks.
    There are some guidelines, but cant recall. At some date in time adjusting planchets stopped.
    Someone here should be able educate us on this without alot of research.

    Adustment marks are on older coins ie: classics , and more on the rims seen. Rollar marks/ lines are across the sufaces in parallel lines. More in the early 1900's that's my experiences.

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