Is The Charlotte,NC Mint worth a visit?

steelie

Headed to Charlotte, NC in a few weeks for a couple of days. I was hoping the Charlotte mint might have something interesting on display and make a vist worthwhile.

I googled the Charlotte Mint but didn't find much info on coin related exhibits at the mint. There was a post, about five years ago on this forum, that said there was a fairly complete charlotte gold exhibit on display. Does anyone know if that collection is still on display or what, if anything coin related, is on display?

Thanks in advance for info.

Steelie..

commoncents123

There's a mint in NC???

SilverEagles92

<< <i>There's a mint in NC??? >>



There used to be

PCcoins

My brother lives there. And everytime I visit, I ask around, "where's the old mint located?" and people look at me like I'm crazy. So I don't think its still standing. If someone knows any info. on this let me know.

SilverEagles92

<< <i>My brother lives there. And everytime I visit, I ask around, "where's the old mint located?" and people look at me like I'm crazy. So I don't think its still standing. If someone knows any info. on this let me know. >>



There's a museum where the old mint used to be, but if you asked 10 people in downtown Charlotte where it was, nobody would know.

savoyspecial

i'm in asheville in the western end of the state.......you might want to check out the old Bechtler "mint" in Rutherfordton, NC

also, there are coins on diplay at the following institutions:

North Carolina Museum of History
5 East Edenton Street
Raleigh, N.C. 27601
(919) 715-0200

Isothermal Community College Library
286 ICC Loop Road
Spindale, N.C. 28160
(828) 286-3636

North Carolina Collection Gallery
Wilson Library, University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill
Polk Place at South Road
Chapel Hill, N.C. 27514
(919) 962-1172

SilverEagles92

<< <i>also, there are coins on diplay at the following institutions:

North Carolina Museum of History
5 East Edenton Street
Raleigh, N.C. 27601
(919) 715-0200 >>



There's not really many coins here. They've got a few, but if things haven't changed since I last visited there, then the display of coins is less than exciting.

PCcoins

Good info to know, I live on the coast in Wilmington.

Is anyone going to the wilmington coin show oct. 18-19?

DaveG

The Charlotte Mint building burned down in 1844 and was rebuilt as a one-story building. The building was dismantled and rebuilt in a different location in 1936 and became an art museum.

Here's the museum's website. From the pictures on the website, the building looks significantly different now than it did when it was rebuilt.

Here's a history of the Charlotte Mint.

Cameonut

I am in Pinehurst so I am only a little over an hours drive to Charlotte or Raleigh or Chapel Hill.

Thanks for posting these collections - I will visit them when in the area.

lordmarcovan

I thoroughly enjoyed the Charlotte Mint, but surprisingly, more for the paintings and furniture and pre-Columbian artifacts and OTHER stuff they had there. It was not just about coins.

Charlotte was more enjoyable to me than Dahlonega, in some ways. There was more to see in the Charlotte Mint Museum, that's for sure.

I like the town and surroundings much better in Dahlonega, though.

In either place you'll see an eyepopping collection of early branch mint gold coins. But once you've looked at that (and obviously you can't get up close and personal with the coins), what then?

Dahlonega, GA has not grown and suffered from urban sprawl like Charlotte has. It is enjoyable to visit the town as a whole, and get all the mining history and stuff. Of course there is a lot of cheesy touristy stuff, but it's fun, and family friendly.

Charlotte's Mint Museum of Art is an ART museum in a modern building, with just some display space dedicated to the history of the old mint and a collection of coins. It's in a much more urban setting, obviously. Once I satisfied my curiosity about the coins (which did not take very long), I had the art collection of the museum to enjoy, and was quite impressed with some of the stuff they had on display.

Both are definitely worth a visit. As is the old San Francisco mint. I've visited three mint museums, now. If I'm ever in New Orleans, you can bet I'll add that one to my list.

savoyspecial

LordM, did you do any metal detecting on this trip to dahlonega? not to far from gainesville and definately within the range of heavy circulation for some nice templeton-reid gold pieces i would think

lordmarcovan

<< <i>LordM, did you do any metal detecting on this trip to dahlonega? not to far from gainesville and definately within the range of heavy circulation for some nice templeton-reid gold pieces i would think >>



I didn't do any detecting while in the Dahlonega area, but you can bet it was on my mind.

Especially with all the mining-related history and references to the old mint and such. No doubt some very interesting coins with C and D mintmarks hit the dirt in that geographic area, not to mention the Templeton Reids and the Bechtler gold pieces from your neck of the woods. North GA and western NC were the primary source of the nation's gold supply until the 1849 California gold rush. The coins no doubt saw local circulation in those areas. I think I told you, Greg, about reading an anecdote in Sondley's history of Asheville, NC, about how the local folk used to bend the Bechtler coins in a doorframe to test the gold.

That Dahlonega visit was on a trip to north Georgia a while back. I'm from GA but from an entirely different corner of the state. We stayed in Atlanta with my wife's best friend. We took a side trip to Helen (an ersatz-German town in GA) and Dahlonega.

While my wife and her friend were back in the Atlanta area doing girl stuff (i.e., shopping), I took a side trip of my own to visit a forum member who called himself "BlueCole". I was surprised to find his real-life name is Blue Cole, which is unusual and colorful (get it? colorful? Ha.) Sadly, Blue no longer posts here. I drove down to Sharpsburg, GA, to visit him. It's one of those neat little towns that seems untouched by time in certain places. Blue was a beginning metal detectorist and took me to some places he had permission to roam around in. As luck would have it, I did manage to make a rather amazing find.

Edit: it would appear that Blue Cole has resurfaced recently. Cool.