Just the coolest article I've read about the classic coin making process...

renomedphys

Link

Robb

Bookmarked it for later. I can tell it's going to be a fun read. Thanks for the link.

LoveMyLiberty

Thank you Matt. Everytime I read one of these descriptions there is a new
tidbit learned.

By the way, it's nice to see a discussion of something other than a "Big One."

johnny9434

thats a nice read, thanks

howards

I'm glad you liked the article. I'm the guy who found it and posted it to the Willamette Coin Club website.

ambro51

That looks really interesting. Printing it out...since my attention span is way too short to read a long web article. thanks for sharing!!

Lewy

Yes, highly interesting. Thanks very much !

howards

<< <i>I'm glad you liked the article. I'm the guy who found it and posted it to the Willamette Coin Club website. >>



IGWT reminded me that he initially found the article and pointed it out to me. Blame my ever-increasing-failing memory, please. My apologies for the misstatement.

ricko

Great article... thanks... Cheers, RickO

RWB

FWIW: QDB and others have been using the Harpers article for decades. The illustrations have been copied endlessly. The descriptions are the basis for many modern assumptions and conjectures – some of which have been accepted as "fact" when they are entirely speculative.

It is a good popular article and a fun read, but do not mistake it for anything authoritative or comprehensive.

PS: The Harpers article was also serialized in Mason's Coin and Stamp Collector's Magazine in 1870.

Quarternut

<< <i>FWIW: QDB and others have been using the Harpers article for decades. The illustrations have been copied endlessly. The descriptions are the basis for many modern assumptions and conjectures – some of which have been accepted as "fact" when they are entirely speculative.

It is a good popular article and a fun read, but do not mistake it for anything authoritative or comprehensive. >>



Great comments that everyone needs to re-read and think more about!

Thanks RWB!

QN

IGWT

I found the article by conducting key-word searches Cornell's Making of America Project. Although I had seen reproductions of some of the etchings that appear in the article, I had never seen any citations to the source, and it was fun to see the original piece (well, a digitized version of the original piece). It seems to me that a lot can be learned by studying the pictures alone, and I'm not sure what "modern assumptions and conjecture" were born from the text.

The article was written by someone who purported to witness the minting process. Are you saying, RWB, that the descriptions by the author are wrong; or that subsequent writers reached incorrect conclusions based on accurate descriptions; or both? Do you know of any inaccuracies in the article itself?

RWB

The Harper’s article (December 1861) is not better or worse than other contemporary popular magazine pieces. It generalizes, simplifies and at times confuses – typical of non-technical writers dealing with a technical subject. I do not know if Harper’s had the article reviewed for accuracy by anyone at the Philadelphia Mint. Occasional later published article were usually reviewed, but the authors still got many things wrong.

My follow-on caveat is that many have since embellished, appended and concatenated the thing to the point that some read much more into the article than is, or was, there.

renomedphys

Surprised to see this thread is still hanging on. I found the article when searching for info on the famous reducing machine that the mint uses to make the original "coin sized" positive dies which are then pressed into annealed blanks to make the negatives. I found the descriptions contained within to be quite entertaining.

I think there are a lot of folks on this forum that could benefit from such a read, regardless of the fact that it may not be completely accurate in the strictest sense.

Never did get very far into the search for technical info on the reducing machine though.

CoinCrazyPA

Nice, thanks for the link.

RWB

Contimin, Hill and Janvier were the most common reducing lathes used at the Philadelphia Mint during the 19th and part of the 20th centuries.