Sample US Mint monthly production report - Sept. 1893
RWB
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Below is an example of the monthly production report prepared by Mint HQ. It shows each mint and the quantity of coins struck by denomination. This type of summary was kept by mint employees for many decades. Unfortunately, quite a few of the ledgers have been lost.
This sample is from September 1893 and shows the correction of half eagle production at New Orleans Mint. This document was helpful to specialists in resolving a long-standing discrepancy. (The January report also confirmed that 100,000 silver dollars were produced at the San Francisco Mint.)
This sample is from September 1893 and shows the correction of half eagle production at New Orleans Mint. This document was helpful to specialists in resolving a long-standing discrepancy. (The January report also confirmed that 100,000 silver dollars were produced at the San Francisco Mint.)
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thanks for posting
www.brunkauctions.com
I see lots of totals. But no math. No accounting.
I assume that this one sheet of paper is backed up by boxes and boxes and boxes of messy accounting?
It looks too perfect to be believed.
I assume that there was a whole class of mint worker that essentially did nothing but audit these numbers. But how was the audit trail captured (and verified)?
Would require quite a payroll...rooms full of humans in the old days.
Now, I guess that payroll goes to the folks writing the computer programs.
Also, the color printing. We take it for granted today, but printing is hard. That seems special to me. Nice colorized final sheet.
<< <i>Sort of interesting today that the sort of calculations we consider "free" due to computers...
Would require quite a payroll...rooms full of humans in the old days.
Now, I guess that payroll goes to the folks writing the computer programs.
Also, the color printing. We take it for granted today, but printing is hard. That seems special to me. Nice colorized final sheet. >>
They must have had a lot of them on hand, since they include three denominations discontinued in 1889.
TD
Notice on the lower right that silver dollars were separated by the law authorizing their production.
I know what the Acts of Feb 28, 1878 and Jul 14,1890 are, but what does the March 31, 1891 date signify?
Silver dollars were coined at the rate of 2,000,000 ounces of silver per month under the Act of 1890 until July 18, 1891 when production was greatly reduced to the level to replace silver dollars redeemed for Treasury Notes of 1890. But those notes were usually redeemed for gold, not silver.
Why would they only make 6 Double Eagles and 10 Quarter Eagles at Philly that month??? Doesn't even seem worth firing up the presses unless you're going to make at least a full roll or bag.
Michael Kittle Rare Coins --- 1908-S Indian Head Cent Grading Set --- No. 1 1909 Mint Set --- Kittlecoins on Facebook --- Long Beach Table 448
Making proof coins to order?
I found the answer.
It was the conversion of Trade dollars in the Treasury into SSD. 5,078,472 was the final total. But I have a new mystery. Two sources give the date of authorization as March 3, 1891 whereas the mint report says March 31, 1891.
Various Annual Report of the Mint gives the list of laws of coin authorizations. I looked at the 1962 report.
A bunch of money laws are desribed in the "Report of the Monetary Commission of the Indianapolis Convention" 1898.
Those were the two sources I used.
The Trade Dollar recoinage is actually more interesting. Coinage conversion was authorized by the law of March 3, 1887. The money to pay for it was authorized the law of March 3, 1891.
I found the answer.
It was the conversion of Trade dollars in the Treasury into SSD. 5,078,472 was the final total. But I have a new mystery. Two sources give the date of authorization as March 3, 1891 whereas the mint report says March 31, 1891.
Your information is not only correct, but you happened to catch a 117 year-old error by one of the clerks. I just looked at the rest of 1893. From Jan-April the monthly reports use the date “March 3, 1891” Beginning in May, the date reads “March 31, 1891” and continues through the year and is also used on the calendar year summary. I presume that a clerk absentmindedly wrote the wrong date, and others copied it forward.
Illini420 ---
Why would they only make 6 Double Eagles and 10 Quarter Eagles at Philly that month??? Doesn't even seem worth firing up the presses unless you're going to make at least a full roll or bag.
These were proof coins struck to fill collector or government orders. They were individually struck on a medal press, not the production presses. If both production and proof pieces were struck during the month, the proof count gets buried in the production quantity. Look at the silver and minor coins - the "100" at the end of each silver quantity were proofs; the "300" at the end of each minor coin were also proofs. (This can be confirmed from other sources for 1893.)
RE: Carson Mint
An earlier note states that production was suspended on June 1, 1893 at the Carson Mint.
Is there any place online to see more of these. This contains some really interesting information.
None of the US Mint archives are on-line, except for a few tiny pieces that the current Mint Historian has managed to make available.
You can examine the originals at the NARA facility in College Park, MD.
Some of the materials, such as daily reports, would be easy to scan. But others, such as the monthly reports, are in bound volumes or exist only as delicate press copy sheets. These can only be photographed page-by-page – a slow process. All it would take are time and money. Based on the time it took me to photograph and assemble the Assay Commission minutes from 1873-1911 – about 900 pages – I estimate the cost would be about $5 per page. (Most materials are too fragile to be handled by automated equipment.)
How this sample was made
The image at the head of this post was created by making photos of the left and right halves of the journal page. (The original page is too large to get in one image and still maintain good resolution. Working conditions prohibit special lighting, etc., so all the images are “hand-held.”) The two half-page images were geometrically corrected using Photoshop, then the halves joined and any overlap was removed. A final image was saved, cropped to remove extraneous background, color and contrast corrected, sharpened and finally saved to my document image library.
Just for grins, here’s one of the original page images I took at NARA after initial color correction:
<< <i>
Illini420 ---
Why would they only make 6 Double Eagles and 10 Quarter Eagles at Philly that month??? Doesn't even seem worth firing up the presses unless you're going to make at least a full roll or bag.
These were proof coins struck to fill collector or government orders. They were individually struck on a medal press, not the production presses. If both production and proof pieces were struck during the month, the proof count gets buried in the production quantity. Look at the silver and minor coins - the "100" at the end of each silver quantity were proofs; the "300" at the end of each minor coin were also proofs. (This can be confirmed from other sources for 1893.)
>>
Thanks! I didn't know they used to literally make proofs to order back then. Very neat.
Michael Kittle Rare Coins --- 1908-S Indian Head Cent Grading Set --- No. 1 1909 Mint Set --- Kittlecoins on Facebook --- Long Beach Table 448
Branch mint papers are often in worse shape than Mint HQ. But there is a lot of stuff similar to your example in the HQ files, too. Documents in journal books and ledgers are usually in better condition because the pages were protected. At least the Carson document you photograph was put in a Mylar page protector – most of the HQ stuff is bare.
<< <i>GoldenEyeNumismatics ---
Branch mint papers are often in worse shape than Mint HQ. But there is a lot of stuff similar to your example in the HQ files, too. Documents in journal books and ledgers are usually in better condition because the pages were protected. At least the Carson document you photograph was put in a Mylar page protector – most of the HQ stuff is bare. >>
A lot of the old Carson documents are still raw---it would actually be a great job for an intern at the Nevada State Museum to spend a few weeks organizing the documents and entering them into a database, since time has taken its toll on a lot of them. To have it all photographed or digitized before further degradation occurs would be quite a good service.
Here's a CC Mint deposit receipt book from 1873. This one is still in decent shape.
<< <i>one doesnt encounter penmanship like that anymore, and that is a shame
thanks for posting >>
I was going to say the same thing. A much simpler time, less hustle and bustle.
Still cool.
TD
Philadelphia
One cent – 445,145
Half Dime – 34,000
Dime – 80,000
Quarter Dollar – 80,000
Half Dollar – 220,000
Quarter Eagle – 1,075
Half Eagle – 35,263
Dahlonega
Half Eagle – 11,907
New Orleans
Half Dollar – 280,000
Half Eagle – 4,000
Eagle – 2,000
Charlotte
No coinage
With apologies to RWB, I see his 1893 and raise him 1845!
RWJ
I have caught a few errors over the years in the various forms of "The Circulation Statement of U. S. Money".
I used to add up the numbers on an abacus for practice.
One item I discovered was that the 1973 Eisenhower dollars (in mint sets only) were added to the stock of dollar coins. This number was not adjusted when the surplus was melted. I have a couple of snotty letters from the Treasury dept on the subject - "We don't count collector coins." THe last one almost reads (heavily paraphased) "Like we told you before, we are right, you are wrong. The revised statement is attached."
When the 3 million CC dollars were sold, they were subtracted from the stock of dollar coins. Yet they kept reappearing there and vanishing again for awhile.
This was not the first time I have met the 3rd and 31st of the month confusion. My great great grandfather, a Revolutionary War veteran, died 3 August 1826 according to the town records and 31 August per his tombstone. It turns out the sexton kept a diary and it says he was buried August 3.
--- Jack Handy
Positive BST transactions with members - Tander123, Twincam, UtahCoin, ianrussell
<< <i>Some of the dictated letters are fun to read - the letter writer will say "We opened the pyx box today" and the Secretary wrote "We opened the picks box today." >>
pyx..... that's a great scrabble word.