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Guess which US Mint.....from the inside.

MGLICKERMGLICKER Posts: 7,995 ✭✭✭
All 3 images are from the same place. None of the guys are Saintguru! image


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Comments

  • yosclimberyosclimber Posts: 5,034 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Moustache Mint, clearly!
  • epcjimi1epcjimi1 Posts: 3,489 ✭✭✭
    THAT is one hell of a scales in pic #2

    I'll go SF assay office as a WAG
  • jmcu12jmcu12 Posts: 2,452 ✭✭✭
    I am going to say CC
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  • ClosedLoopClosedLoop Posts: 1,077 ✭✭✭
    the unhappy mint.image

    i'll say dahlonega
    figglehorn
  • goodmoney4badmoneygoodmoney4badmoney Posts: 1,298 ✭✭✭✭✭


    << <i>Moustache Mint, clearly! >>



    Thinking the same thing image
  • BoosibriBoosibri Posts: 12,395 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Since only one photo of Dahlonega exists I doubt it is from Georgia. I'll say Philadelphia.
  • ClosedLoopClosedLoop Posts: 1,077 ✭✭✭
    is that a press in pic1?
    figglehorn
  • AUandAGAUandAG Posts: 24,929 ✭✭✭✭✭


    << <i>I am going to say CC >>



    no, not cc

    bob
    Registry: CC lowballs (boblindstrom), bobinvegas1989@yahoo.com
  • BillJonesBillJones Posts: 34,767 ✭✭✭✭✭
    I'd the those photos were taken at the second Philadelphia Mint.
    Retired dealer and avid collector of U.S. type coins, 19th century presidential campaign medalets and selected medals. In recent years I have been working on a set of British coins - at least one coin from each king or queen who issued pieces that are collectible. I am also collecting at least one coin for each Roman emperor from Julius Caesar to ... ?
  • MGLICKERMGLICKER Posts: 7,995 ✭✭✭
    Old San Fran mint.

    Here is a 1906 earthquake shot of the exterior.



    image
  • BLUEJAYWAYBLUEJAYWAY Posts: 10,030 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Those are very interesting photos. Amazing how it once was.
    Successful transactions:Tookybandit. "Everyone is equal, some are more equal than others".
  • LindeDadLindeDad Posts: 18,766 ✭✭✭✭✭


    << <i>is that a press in pic1? >>



    Looks more like the forge room to me with what looks like heat coming off the caldrons on the left.
  • CoinZipCoinZip Posts: 3,253 ✭✭✭
    Fantastic photos..... thank you for sharing them.

    Coin Club Benefit auctions ..... View the Lots

  • BodinBodin Posts: 1,022 ✭✭✭
    I'll go with San Francisco since those guys look like they're out of a Chaplin film. West coast style of facial hair.
  • MGLICKERMGLICKER Posts: 7,995 ✭✭✭


    << <i>I'll go with San Francisco since those guys look like they're out of a Chaplin film. West coast style of facial hair. >>



    That and the clock in picture two was set to Pacific Standard Time. image
  • 19Lyds19Lyds Posts: 26,492 ✭✭✭✭


    << <i>

    << <i>I'll go with San Francisco since those guys look like they're out of a Chaplin film. West coast style of facial hair. >>



    That and the clock in picture two was set to Pacific Standard Time. image >>

    Notice how all of them have huge grins on their faces like their happy to have a job??
    I decided to change calling the bathroom the John and renamed it the Jim. I feel so much better saying I went to the Jim this morning.



    The name is LEE!
  • LochNESSLochNESS Posts: 4,829 ✭✭✭
    I just saw this. I was going to say San Fran because the ceilings were so high. None of the old buildings in Dahlonega have ceilings like that. Dang my guts were right!
    ANA LM • WBCC 429

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    image
  • LoveMyLibertyLoveMyLiberty Posts: 1,784 ✭✭✭

    Here is some added information about these wonderful old photos.

    Once the metal to make coins arrived at a Mint prior to about 1910 it basically went through the following procedures with slight variances between Mints and equipment:

    assaying for weight, type of metals, value, fineness, etc.

    melting & refining for purity standards

    Ingot casting & finishing

    rolling ingots to planchet thickness

    annealing roller strips ( after around 1910 most strip annealing of gold & silver was eliminated due to higher quality metal in the alloy )

    drawing bench for final thickness

    annealing rolled strips for cutting

    cutting blanks

    upsetting (milling) rims on blanks, making planchets

    weighing planchets for standard weight

    adjusting for too heavy by filing, too light sent to remelt

    annealing for striking, cleaning & whitening

    striking planchets in a coin press


    Pic 1 I believe is the Cleaning and Whitening room for cleaning the wax and/or
    grease and handling oils off of the gold and the silver metal strips. Wax was applied to gold strips & grease to silver strips during the drawbench procedure. Strips that were condemned because of damage, or inaccurate thickness were sent to be remelted, thus the cleaning.

    Blanks were punched out of the metal strips and then milled to raise a rim on them. These were now called planchets. Then they were cleansed in a hot alkaline bath of soda and bar soap, then rinsed with hot water. The rinsing vat (seen at the left) was a wooden tub lined with sheet lead and a partial lining of sheet copper at the top. Planchets (seen being removed from the dryer at center) were moved in a stout copper pan, holding 1,000 pieces of the dollar size, then annealed by heating to a cherry red in furnaces fired by yellow pine.
    Silver pieces were placed in open earthenware pans exposed to the heat for fifteen minutes. Gold pieces were put in rectangular cast iron canisters, hermetically closed with potters' clay and heated for twenty minutes.

    After annealing planchets were immersed in a weak acidic bath, referred to as "pickling", using nitric acid for gold planchets & sulfuric acid for silver planchets. They were then rinsed in cold water, partially dried with sawdust made of basswood, which was brought from Philadelphia, and had a final drying in closed pans before being sent to the coining presses to be struck into coins.

    Incorrectly annealed blanks & planchets could have cosmetic problems like discoloration and black spots that were not removed by cleaning. These were remelted. Gas and impurities trapped in the metal could cause planchets to blister when heated and were condemed where identified. The biggest problem was incorrect temperature that prevented planchets from reaching their optimum softness and thus coins struck from these planchets were poorly detailed and had the appearance of a "weak strike". This was often a problem at the New Orleans Mint from 1879 to 1904, especially for silver dollars. Most weakly struck coins originated with annealing defects, not striking, or die set-up difficulties.



    Pic 2 is most likely the Deposit Receiving Room. U.S. Mints and to a lesser extent U.S. Assay Offices received deposits of gold and silver from many sources and in many forms, including bullion, bricks, bars, dust, nuggets, granules, articles made of old jewelry, watch cases, dental scrap, gold leaf and any other material containing gold and silver. Often the depositor could see the weighing of their material and received a receipt for the deposit. Requests for immediate payment would be honored if the deposit were of high quality material. The deposit had to be at least $ 100 in value.

    Once assayed new deposits were sent to the Melting & Refining department of the Mint to be processed into coinage.



    Pic 3 depicts the Melting and Refining ( M&R ) department which had three primary functions during the late 1800's.

    1. It consolidated the deposit shoe bars into melts to make unparted gold and silver bars for refining.

    2. It refined the unparted bars of metal into bars of nearly pure gold and silver, removing harmful impurities such as tin and arsenic.

    3. M&R produced ingots of 0.900 fine gold and silver for use by the coining department and higher purity bars for sale to merchants, artisans and tradesmen.


    After gold and silver was deposited by the public it was weighed, assayed and melted and cast in molds creating bars termed "shoe bars" having a shape formed into three sections that could be broke into different parts to facilitate dissolving the unparted metal during refining in the Melting & Refining dept. When fine gold or silver bars were received from refineries & government assay offices, they were not melted again, but were assayed to see if it agreed with the stamped bar.

    image

    Mixed alloys of gold and silver were separated into pure metals in the refinery through a process of boiling with sulfuric acid, separating the gold, precipitating the silver using silver sulfate & metallic copper, resulting in compressed silver precipitate known as "silver-cake". After both the gold and silver metals were parted and still in the melt stage, a percentage of copper was added to produce the proper alloy for standard coin. The makeup of this alloy was determined by the original assay & two assays of the melt batch.

    Once at the M & R as seen in Pic 3 there were 8 identical furnaces fired using anthracite coal. Some furnaces were used to melt gold using kaolinitic clay fired ceramic crucibles able to withstand high heat. For silver, graphite crucibles, also called "plumbago", or "black lead", were used. All the crucibles were placed on fire-bricks and remained in the furnaces until they were no longer usable. The molten metal was dipped from the crucibles and poured into molds arranged on a bench next to the furnaces. The size of the crucibles varied, depending on the amount of metal to be melted. Each size of crucible was numbered indicating how many kilograms it would hold, i.e. #20 = 20 kilograms, or 643 troy ounces.

    Here is another view of the S.F. Melting Room and one of the Philadelphia:

    image
    image

    Ingot molds were made of cast iron, using three pieces, a long U-shape rectangle closed at one end, a flat plate to enclose the U-shape and a turn screw clamp to hold the pieces together. The molds were 13" long and 1/2" thick. The width varied for each denomination. Often there were two molds clamped together. Before each use the molds were lubricated with lard spread over the inside faces of the mold. When the metal was sufficiently heated a workman using a graphite cup on a long pole and heavy padded gloves would extract a cup of gold, or silver and fill each of the molds. One dip of the cup was enough to fill a mold. Another worker would remove the mold to a long table covered with a thick iron slab. A third worker would unscrew the mold and lay the ingots out on the iron table. With a long copper tong a worker gathered up six ingots & plunged them into a wooden vat containing a bath of weak sulfuric acid to cool.
    After they were cool he removed the ingots and placed them into a copper vat where cold water flowed through to rinse off the acid. A few minutes later the ingots were removed to a wooden box to drain.

    Here is a closer look at the ingot molds:

    image

    The next step was at the filing bench where the ingots would be held in a copper plated vice where the edges would be filed flat, then to a shearing press where the upper end (pouring end of the mold) was cut off to produce a smooth, square edge. This was called "topping" the ingot.
    The ingots were weighed & assayed where if correct they were stamped with it's weight and fineness, then moved to the rolling mill on a small wagon. If the assay showed an incorrect alloy, the ingot was put aside and eventually remelted.

    At every stage of processing precious metals every effort was made to recover even the smallest bits. All floors were swept & mopped, clothing was burned to recover ash that contained metal and water was filtered to recover residue. All these efforts were called "sweeps" and recorded in ledgers of accounts.
    In Pic 3 notice the floor with grating made of hexagonal holes. It's irregular surface scraped dirt and metal particles from shoes of workmen and the wheels of transport wagons. Wagons that bumped across the holes caused metal to fall as it was being carried and flakes from dropped ingots and spilt metal were trapped in the honeycomb floor for later recovery. The gratings were taken up, scrubbed and washed every three months.
    I can't imagine that care being taken today!


    Information taken from the following fine sources:

    From Mine to Mint, by Roger W. Burdette, 2013

    Comprehensive Catalog and Encyclopedia of Morgan & Peace
    Dollars, by Leroy C. Van Allen & A. George Mallis, 4th ed., 1991

    United States Gold Coins: An Illustrated History, by Q. David Bowers
    1982

    The Encyclopedia of United States Silver Dollars, 1794 - 1804 ,
    by Q. David Bowers, 2013
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  • AMRCAMRC Posts: 4,280 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Great photos.

    Going with Philadelphia although I cannot say why.
    MLAeBayNumismatics: "The greatest hobby in the world!"
  • BillyKingsleyBillyKingsley Posts: 2,661 ✭✭✭✭
    Great pictures. This is the kind of post I love to read. Check out the glow from the heat (apparently) on the left side of the first photo posted in the thread. That's really hard to capture even now a days.
    Billy Kingsley ANA R-3146356 Cardboard History // Numismatic History
  • TommyTypeTommyType Posts: 4,586 ✭✭✭✭✭
    An interesting read along the same lines as that posted by LoveMyLiberty:

    Link

    It's a description of a Philadelphia mint tour, published in "St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls", May 1878

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