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Philly Coining Presses - A Lot Going On In This Picture
MisterBungle
Posts: 2,308 ✭✭✭
Alright my peoples. Somebody tell me what all is
going on in this photo. It is one half of a stereo-
view of coining presses at the Philadelphia Mint
circa 1920s.
What are the funnel shaped things sticking out
in the front. Is this where the blanks are loaded
in?? The guy in front looks to have a scoop in
his hand and feeding something into it.
Are those trays on the pull carts loaded with
blanks??
What are those water fountain looking things
on the front left of all the presses??
What are in all those three legged buckets
in back of the guys??
What is the grate looking thing on the lower
left of the press??
And what are those two people in the very
back, against the wall, doing??
~
"America suffers today from too much pluribus and not enough unum.".....Arthur Schlesinger Jr.
0
Comments
The funnel shaped things do in fact look like loading hoppers - it would make sense to have them up higher so the planchets would gravity feed toward the mechanism that feeds them into the coining chamber.
One cart likely has blank planchets and the other finished coins in the tote pans. Each pan would be somewhat heavy if full so this was a common way to handle small parts. We used one cubic foot tote pans in our shop but usually couldn't fill them very full with steel or brass stampings.
The water fountain looking things are a bit of a mystery to me as they look far more decorative than I would have expected. I would assume that these were used to catch the fresh coins and served as a buffer. The operator would look at the coins in the buffer when full to insure good quality. If good, they could open the hinged side door and transfer them to a tote pan. This doesn't look quite right in the photo, but it is the process we used in the 'old days' to avoid mixing bad parts with known good parts.
I have no clue what the 3 legged buckets are - too bad we aren't any closer.
The grate on the lower left could be a couple of things. First, it looks like a simple guard to prevent the operator from getting too close to a pinch point. I could also see it being used as a crude separator for oversize/undersize planchets, but I don't think so.
The two people sitting by the wall must be the supervisors.
There you go based on my experience from 50 years later than that photo.
edited for spelling
“In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock." - Thomas Jefferson
My digital cameo album 1950-64 Cameos - take a look!
Calling DC ...
Are you here, sir?
(He would know, for sure!)
Stefanie
.
CoinsAreFun Toned Silver Eagle Proof Album
.
Gallery Mint Museum, Ron Landis& Joe Rust, The beginnings of the Golden Dollar
.
More CoinsAreFun Pictorials NGC
Thanks Cameonut. It all seems logical to me.
And I should have guessed that the two
people in the back, not doing anything, must
be supervisors.
Yeah Staircoins, I didn't even think about
Daniel. He may know about all this stuff.
And cool token, Stefanie!! The press looks
a lot like the ones in the picture. It just
means you'll have to buy another one!!
~
"America suffers today from too much pluribus and not enough unum.".....Arthur Schlesinger Jr.
walkers maybe? or smaller,maybe quarters or nickles?
If you really have an interest in the third Mint, there are many more images about the equipment and machinery that was installed around the turn of the 20th century, in the James R Young book about the Mint that came out in 1903.
Nice to see that some of the old stuff still exists and has not been scrapped out yet!
Here's the CC's #1 press being operated by Bob Nylen and Ken Hopple making CC
tokens. Taken in Aug 2007. Their coin show this year, by the way, is Aug 21 & 22.
This can be seen at the Museum in Carson City (the old Mint bldg).
bob
Built: 1869
Maker: Morgan & Orr, Philadelphia, PA
Weight: 12,000 pounds
Production capability: 1869 - 1,500 coins per hour
Today: 1 medal takes 10 seconds to strike
Striking pressure: 1869 - 200 tons
Today: 200 tons
"Keep your malarkey filter in good operating order" -Walter Breen
"Keep your malarkey filter in good operating order" -Walter Breen
John
Starting with the background and moving forward:
1. The large door at the back, right, led to the Melting & Refining Department and the upsetting mill. Two men standing to the left of the door are probably laborers who moved the carts of coin bins on and off the press room floor. (They were the lowest paid male employees.)
2. The man (white shirt) sitting at the desk with his back to the room is probably the assistant coiner. (The coiner had a separate office.) To his back is a large beam balance used to weigh the bins of blanks and coins.
3. In front of the laborers are carts with coin bins stacked on them. The bins contain planchets. Struck coins were removed quickly. (I think the carts were color coded – blue for planchets and red for struck coins.)
4. Left side. Nine coin presses of the Uhlhorn-type (probably made by Morgan & Orr or Ferracute). These were all electrically driven.
5. Above each press are lights for general illumination. Hanging over the front of each press is a work light to make it easier to see key parts of the equipment.
6. At the front of each press is a conical hopper filled with planchets. (Invented by A Leslie Lambert in 1909.) The workman closest the camera is filling a hopper with planchets using a scoop. (The press room was very noisy, yet the workers have no hearing or eye protection. Longtime pressmen were nearly all deaf, and quite a few were missing a finger or parts of one.)
7. The rope-like apparatus (made of rubber) at the side and front of the closest press is a “jiggler” which wiggles the hopper so that coins flow into the press’ feeder tube by gravity. The silver piece of metal over which the rubber rope passes is spring-loaded so it moves as the rubber moves and helps prevent excess wear on the rubber.
8. Behind the press is a 12 HP electric motor to run the press.
9. The 12 bins on the cart in the center foreground appear to contain planchets. The cart in the right foreground probably contains struck coins.
10. The thing that looks like a bathroom sink (center, foreground) is probably a die and tool holder. It kept necessary parts readily available but out of the way.
11. Lower left, ejected coins fall onto a “riddler” which separated out many of the defective strikes. A removable bin under the riddler collected the good coins. The pressman used the small box below the receiving bin to hold rejects.
12. (I don’t know what the cup attached to the long rod was for.)
13. The circular containers with tripod legs were collecting bins for defective coins. The workmen came around once or twice a day and emptied them in the M&R Department for melting.
I'm probably wrong on some points so please correct....!
Very informative post - thanks to the OP, Cameonut & RWB (and others, for your pics & tokens!).
I remain puzzled by the cups on the end of the long handles. The fact that they are hanging in the same position on both of the nearest presses makes me think that the sink-like objects may indeed be basins of some sort. I can't see the need for a container of this size & shape to hold tools & dies, but it makes perfect sense if it were needed to hold some kind of liquid - which fits with the long-handled cup.
The cup is obviously not an oiler (I don't think). Would there have been a need to rinse or quench something periodically, perhaps?
I didn't notice the cup on the end of the long handle - it intrigues me as well. Clearly it is not used to add planchets to the hopper as the operator is using a scoop to do that in the photo. My first thought was this might be used to catch a sample off a new set of dies. You may not have the exit chutes in place during a die change and you sure wouldn't want to put your hands anywhere near the dies for fear of losing a finger or two. But the angle on the cup vs the handle doesn't look quite right and the handle is awful long for that purpose.
It seems like it was designed to do something at floor level - but I don't see anything that might make sense. I can't imagine anything that would need to be quenched - rinsed maybe. The lubrication of the equipment is accomplished by the oil chambers mounted on top of the press plus the two that are visible between the spokes of the flywheel. I don't see any evidence of lubricating the planchets before or during striking. If you don't put lube on the planchets, you don't usually have to worry about removing anything after striking. We used to use a water soluble oil and applied it to the strips of metal we were stamping - it was easily rinsed off after stamping.
I now see another tool that would have been used alot. There is a set of tongs hanging on the pedestal just to the right of the cup with the handle on it. These would have been used to remove debris or anything else in the press to keep your hands out of harms way. You would always want these nearby.
“In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock." - Thomas Jefferson
My digital cameo album 1950-64 Cameos - take a look!
Long shot: How were the assay coins selected during a long press run? Is there any possibility that the cup was used at the appropriate interval to reach behind the press and catch a coin and then deposit it in a receptical without contaminating it by human contact? Might the small square box on the base of the press be that receptical?
Or, as a longer shot, might the cup be used to catch the startup coins that are too weakly struck to issue?
TD
Great reading folks!!
I had not noticed the long handled cup on the water
fountain looking thing either.
I'll bet it WAS loud as crap in there. It looks like there
are 10 presses in that line, and if they're all running
at the same time, yowee!!
~
"America suffers today from too much pluribus and not enough unum.".....Arthur Schlesinger Jr.
Planchets were lightly oiled before they were delivered to the pressroom.
Special assay and Assay Commission coins were taken from bins of good coin after acceptance by the coiner, so I don’t think the long handled cup was used for collecting specimens in the pressroom. The item must have been used regularly since there’s one with each press and it’s in a convenient location…..hmmmm.
<< <i>
Have those gold bricks collapsed in their centers??
The name is LEE!
According to grandpa ..... at the turn of the century, any machinery that had a flywheel often times had
belt[s] made of leather. As the machine ran, it was necessary to wet the belts every so often. NOT
wanting to turn the machine off or reach into it, a long handled cup was the safe way to do it!
Gramps did not work at the mint so I don't know if this is applicable here....butttt seeing
the size of the flywheel on the press closest to us......
********************
Silver is the mortar that binds the bricks of loyalty.
There were 25 coining presses in the large, west facing room. Ten new coining presses were purchased for the new US Mint building from Philadelphia maker T. C. Dill Machine Co., Inc., who also supplied two rolling mills.
Blank planchets were stored in the oblong bowl on the top of the pedestal. The stamped coins ejected downwards into a can (collector box) under the press. It wasn't the little can on the end of the "stick" which may have been used as an emergency shut down foot switch (in case of jammed ejection or stuck planchets) by the operator. There were both men and women operating these presses. Usually, they sat on tall, wooden chairs.
As RWB pointed out, the hoppers for blank planchets was invented in 1909, so that's why the floor mounted oblong bowls are empty in the image which would most likely date to 1910 or a bit later. There is an earlier image of a woman sitting at a press, holding blanks in one hand while feeding the tube with the other. This picture (in the Young book) shows the oblong bowl full of blanks.
IIRC, there is a similar image from Harpers back from the 1860's, and I have other steroeviews (in my Henry Voigt book) showing the same thing.
edited to add - The gold bars often showed depressions in the centers due to cooling.
Yes..... they must have been poured VERY hot!!
********************
Silver is the mortar that binds the bricks of loyalty.
<< <i>Water fountain & Long handled cup.
According to grandpa ..... at the turn of the century, any machinery that had a flywheel often times had
belt[s] made of leather. As the machine ran, it was necessary to wet the belts every so often. NOT
wanting to turn the machine off or reach into it, a long handled cup was the safe way to do it!
Gramps did not work at the mint so I don't know if this is applicable here....butttt seeing
the size of the flywheel on the press closest to us...... >>
The second Philadelphia Mint had pulley-driven presses, but as RWB pointed out these are electrically-driven presses.
On the pulley-driven presses, a series of drive shafts ran down the length of the ceiling of the press room. A steam boiler in the basement ran the drive shafts, hence the references to "First Steam Coinage" in 1836.
A leather belt would be wrapped around a drive wheel on the drive shaft, and also around a corresponding drive wheel on the coin press. THe drive wheel turned the big flywheel, which with a cam wheel generated the force that drove the dies up and down.
TD
No, wait, that was the FIRST Philadelphia Mint...........
If –
the basin-like things once held blank planchets, and
the photo was taken within a year or two of introduction of the hopper in Feb/March 1910, and the planchets had been hand-fed before the automatic hopper, and the cup on a stick hangs from a hook on the basin,
Then –
the cup on a stick might have been used by the press operator to scoop a handful of planchets while he continued to feed planchets into the press. (Feeder tube only held a few hundred planchets. Documents say the automatic hopper was good for 20 minutes production.)
After the hopper arrangement was fully tested and practical, the basins could have been used for parts, tools, dies, or later removed…..just speculation.
can see a huge scale in the background and the 110 V
electric clock says it's 1:37 PM (it's probably a western
exposure on a cool July day.). The objects at the top of
the machinery are oilers. (these would probably be fill-
ed by an oiler with a large syringe like device). I sup-
pose that's a reject tray in the lower left corner.
The lower "pipes" above are electric conduit and supply
lights (and possibly alarms) above the windows. The
upper pipes are plumbling for the floor above. Those
carts require a lot of strenght to pull and the front two
wheels pivot for steering.
The placement of the "cup on a stick" would make it impractical to scoop out very many blanks. Besides, the press operator could keep a steady fill of the tubes by using their left hand to reach and grab blanks, while "adjusting them" in a single row (much like rolling loose coins). The operator's right hand would be kept busy feeding the blanks into the tubes. The image in the Young book has the lady doing this procedure and wearing white gloves.
The chairs were so high that it would be an extremely difficult to reach downward to pick up or handle anything.
From indications, it looks as if there are two levels of "running production changes" in the coining system when the hopper for blanks was added. At least they had electric lights (with gas backups) and could work without being in the dark.
Yep, "sued" as in that old song by Johnny Cash about a boy named "Sued" or something like that. He grew up to be a lawyer...?
This is exactly the kind of in depth study of this
picture I was hoping for. Lots of detail that I
had not even noticed, and I thought I studied
it pretty closely.
Great work guys!!
~
"America suffers today from too much pluribus and not enough unum.".....Arthur Schlesinger Jr.
In the M&R room (through the large open door) one of the men just got burned as some copper splattered when the zinc was added. The foreman is helping him while the other workmen continue their tasks. The mint’s pet cat, “Gimpy” ‘cause of the foot it lost in a press, is sleeping in the corner, back left under an unused press.
I also think that this maybe a gold production run, hence just two wagons with a total of 15 trays. At 300 coins avg. per tray, that would equate to at least 4500 gold coins.
Really interesting picture.
Edit: If my wife ever seen one of those three legged containers, she'd have me make a planter out of one.
"Keep your malarkey filter in good operating order" -Walter Breen
He reportedly came from a long line of Mint felines, and was the great-great-great grandson of "Gimpy Sr." who according to reports occassionally chased after "Peter" the Mint"s Bald Eagle back in the early 1830's.
Although Mint Director Robert Patterson (1835-1851) liked "Peter" and wanted to immortalize him when he died, "Peter" ended up encased in a pexiglass "slab".
Does anyone have any information on "Gimpy Sr."?
Funny you should ask…I just happened to locate some nonexistent records (mostly 78s) and they confirm one of Walter Breen’s speculations about the “Midnight Minters.”
It seems that the first round of “midnight minting” took place in the late 1850s. One of the Eckfeldt boys and some others got together to run off some duplicates from older dies. This was just before the decision to advertise proof sets for collectors and the guys figured there would be a lot of demand for shiny “specimen” and “master” coins.
But, everyone knew that they’d pay with their jobs if anyone found out they were making money off of making money. So, Eckfeldt and his friends used Gimpy Sr’s paw to push the weight on the big medal press. That way they could honestly say they didn’t strike the coins! Naturally, all the wear and tear on poor Gimpy Sr. was too much for his paw, and it got infected and eventually fell off. This stopped the midnight minters, and they and to concoct a story about Gimpy Sr. getting is paw stuck in a press to explain the injured cat to Director Snowden.
When Gimpy Sr. died, he was hollowed out and stuffed, but eventually fell into a melt of silver and burst into flame.
PS: one of the bins could hold 1,000 silver dollar blanks. The bins were approximately the dimensions of a $1,000 bag of dollars.
"I just happened to locate some nonexistent records (mostly 78s)..."
"...the Eckfeldt boys"
-----
Wait, I think I remember The Eckfeldt Boys. Didn't they record
for Vocalion?? Had a song called. "Goin' Downtown, Gonna See
My Gal". Went something like...
Goin' downtown gonna see my gal
Gonna sing her a song y'all
Gonna show her my ding...
...I don't know, maybe it was somebody else.
~
"America suffers today from too much pluribus and not enough unum.".....Arthur Schlesinger Jr.
I do not know what mint this is, but the picture properties said it was from 1901 As you can see, the basin on a pedestal is catching coins, looks like nickels (also marked 5) as they come from the press!
mystery solved
"Keep your malarkey filter in good operating order" -Walter Breen
I would guess that it was a reservoir of planchets for the operator to hand feed into the press without having to bend down and pick up more. A different mint worker could refill the reservoirs for several press operators on a rotation basis, so that they would never have any down time refilling their reservoirs.
On the U.S. Mint picture, that may have been just after the automated feeders were added to the presses, but before the pedestals were taken away.
TD
Another great picture!!
I agree with Tom. The basin is too high and too far away
to catch minted coins. The reservoir for blank planchets
sounds plausible, since I see no hopper on this press.
This picture also solves another riddle. What is in the
wooden cabinet on the far left in the first picture, behind
the press. I still don't know what all that stuff is, but at
least we know it's not a coat closet.
~
"America suffers today from too much pluribus and not enough unum.".....Arthur Schlesinger Jr.
<< <i>Pictures that appeared in LIFE magazine of gold bar production at the US MINT
They sure didn't have OSHA regulations back then.. Safety glasses should of been a must. I wonder how many workers had eye injuries.
<< <i>Another great picture!!
I agree with Tom. The basin is too high and too far away
to catch minted coins. The reservoir for blank planchets
sounds plausible, since I see no hopper on this press.
This picture also solves another riddle. What is in the
wooden cabinet on the far left in the first picture, behind
the press. I still don't know what all that stuff is, but at
least we know it's not a coat closet.
~ >>
The cylindrical tank looks like a modern coffee urn. I would guess that it held drinking water.
TD
<"A leather belt would be wrapped around a drive wheel on the drive shaft, and also around a corresponding drive wheel on the coin press. THe drive wheel turned the big flywheel, which with a cam wheel generated the force that drove the dies up and down.
TD">
I believe the leather belts for machines of that era were made from American bison hides.
Thats where the hides of the 19th century buffalo slaughter went! Apparently they were the strongest and most durable.
krueger
The "coffee" looking urn in the cabinet might also be filled with machine oil for lubrication?
OK, so the mystery is not solved.
I like a good mystery.
"Keep your malarkey filter in good operating order" -Walter Breen
Five other images (including the counting board for cents) were displayed on the front page of the September 7, 1901 issue of Scientific American, along with an interesting write up by Marcus Benjamin PH D. The person depicted (with a suit and tie) might be Mint Director George Roberts. As I previously mentioned, the oblong bowl in front was used for blank planchets.
These are among the few surviving photographic images taken inside the second Mint in Philadelphia, which by then was old, dirty, and cramped for space. There are a few other second Mint stereoviews extant (one that shows the counting board in a different location) and all are most interesting. I have a couple of these in my Henry Voigt book.
The earliest images (line drawings) to appear in print about the U.S. Mint were drawn by an artist named Del Devereux, who was commissioned to sketch various scenes while a reporter was taken on a tour inside the second Mint. These were displayed in the July 17, 1852 issue of Gleason's Pictorial.
A comprehensive numismatic library is a very worthwhile endeavor.
To put the 1901 timeframe into perspective, there is a picture of the Santos-Dumont No5 balloon, one of the earliest navigable airships (pre-Wright Bros) that had crashed into a hotel in Paris on August 8th when he was attempting to win the Deutsch prize flying around the Eiffel Tower in a timed event.
<< <i>
I do not know what mint this is, but the picture properties said it was from 1901 As you can see, the basin on a pedestal is catching coins, looks like nickels (also marked 5) as they come from the press!
mystery solved >>
Looking at the black tank/reservoir labeled "5," there does seem to be some sort of projection above the upper edge on the rim where it is closest to the coin dies. If you look at the original picture, there seems to be something there also.
However, I still don't think that it is receiving struck coins. As the original picture shows, the struck coins come out down low to the left where they go through a screen into a flat catch box.
I cannot figure out what that projection is. It may have been some sort of rack to help the press operator make a stack of planchets that he could then drop down the feed tube. This is just a guess. It would make sense to have such a device closest to the press, to cut down on the press operators motion.
TD
I think this is a hand pumped oil bin to fill the small cup OR Ladel to oil that darn thang
Fill the oil bin in AM to use during the day - Looks to hold around 5-6 gallons
Hand pump to fill cup and ladel - Any drippage falls back into bin
Unused oil is drained at the end of the day or to clean the bin ( See drain plug bottom right )
The cup would be used to lubricate the arm in the foreground - notice drip catch directly below it.
The long ladel I think is to refill the automatic oilers in the rear (2) and one on top of the press.
This is my opinion - it may differ than others
"I think this is a hand pumped oil bin to fill the small cup OR Ladel to oil that darn thang"
-----
This would have been more of an option for the basin had
WoodenJefferson not uploaded the second picture of the
presses, which shows the basin full of lumpy stuff. Coins
or planchets would be my guess, and moreover, planchets,
since I can see no reason for struck coins to be there.
Of course, we're all just guessing, but I think we are coming
closer to an understanding of the press operations. It's all
very interesting to me.
~
"America suffers today from too much pluribus and not enough unum.".....Arthur Schlesinger Jr.