Behind the Scenes at the San Francisco Mint

Regulated

This past Friday, I was fortunate enough to be invited to the San Francisco Mint to take part in the official striking ceremony for the Granite Lady/San Francisco Mint Commemorative Dollars. After a meet and greet with mint officials and politicians, attendees were able to strike their own Commemorative Dollar on a special press that was set up for the event - needless to say, I was in coin-weenie heaven. Best of all, the attendees were given a tour of the San Francisco Mint; interestingly, none of the mint employees could remember ever giving a tour of the production facilities.

After being led through a few hallways by an armed escort, we arrived in the press room, where we were told that we could take pictures of everything that they showed us, as long as we didn't take any photographs of the windows (for security purposes). Thank God for camera phones! What follows is my best approximation of our tour - enjoy!

The entrance to the Mint with a very cool Slug Facsimile inlay:



A die polisher explains her job:



Dies in various states of completion along with the tools of the trade(the diesat the upper right are as delivered from the Philadelphia Mint, the rest are polished):



Blanks being annealed in a furnace:



A closeup of the Upsetting Machine, which upsets the rims on annealed planchets:



Annealed planchets that have been run through the Upsetting Machine:



The same planchets, on their way into the burnishing tumbler:



Burnished planchets:



The Minting Press and its operator. This particular machine uses 160 tons or pressure to strike coins. each piece gets six blows from the die in order to bring up detail:



A robot is used to place the coins into their capsules - human hands never touch the unsealed product:



Sorry in advance for the low quality pictures - had I known we would be allowed to use cameras, I would have brought along a much better setup...

Tassa

Very cool. Thanks for sharing the experience with us.

Cladiator

Cool post man. Thanks for taking the time.

Leiana

Awesome! Thanks for sharing.

-Amanda

AlixTCat

I'm really pleased you took the time to share this here. I sure wish I could go have a tour someday as well. Looks like a very fun day.

Jonathan

Regulated

It was one of the most interesting things that I have done in a long while. Somewhere, my wife is rolling her eyes.

Longacre

Way cool! Thanks for sharing.

PhillyJoe

A great experience. Nothing wrong with those pictures. Thanks for the look inside.

Joe

richardshipp

Great post. Thanks for sharing. We went there about 5 years ago and you could go inside, but NOT into the production area.

keez

Thanks for posting, very imformative and good pics too. It's interesting to learn that the coins are placed into capsules by robots.

BECOKA

Thanks, now when I get these they will have a little more meaning.

michael

wow great photos

thanks!!!!!!!!!!!
for a camera phone they turned out quite well and clear!!!!

one of the more interesting posts on here for the workings inside a federal mint and photos too!

and the secretive san fran mint!!

cladking

Cool.

Can you explain that first photo?

aficionado

So it's the Robots that messed up the San Fran. Comm. They didn't put the coin in the capsule correctly.

Fire those SOB's and get some humans to do the job right.

by the way, excellent post.

NumisOxide

I really like pic # 3 which shows the dies.

Thanks for sharing, you were quite lucky.

19Lyds

All extremely interesting. Especially where the dies actually get polished. I guess it would be that point where any flaws would be picked up (or introduced).

As far as this 6 strike stuff, thats 4 more than a proof! Were you able to see any coins as they came out? Were you able to keep your own coin? If so, a picture would surely be appreciated.

ColonialCoinUnion

Great post.

Tootawl

You suck!!!

xbob

Damnit! They let you take pics!! You are lucky!

At Philly, you can't even bring in a camera and they won't hold it. If your car isn't near by, or someone to hold the camera, you are SOL.

Thanks for sharing.

This one made me laugh...
robot is used to place the coins into their capsules - human hands never touch the unsealed product:
With the reports of some coins coming out of capsules in shipping (including some of my 20th Ann. SAE) I think those robots need to a salary reduction or at least a firm talking-to. But then again they might react by rising up and trying to destroy their creators. Frackin' robots!

pontiacinf

thanks for sharing that David

A+ post

CoinRaritiesOnline

Wow -- great post David. I am so jealous!

Swampboy

Thank You!!

Awesome photo essay!

IGWT

Fun tour!

Regulated

Interestingly, the robots that are putting the capsules together are the ones that put together the regular proof set plastic boxes, and they had to be reprogrammed to put coins into the commem capsules - I guess that must be where they ran into problems. As far as the first picture goes, I found it interesting that the designer of the Mint Building chose to reproduce a Humbert Lettered Edge Slug at the front door. After thinking about it, I decided that it made a lot of sense, being that 1851 Slugs were the first product of the Assay Office (the forerunner of the San Francisco Mint).