A month after the beginning of Morgan dollar production - April 1, 1878
RogerB
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A month after urgently beginning manufacture of planchets for the new standard silver dollar, Philadelphia Mint Coiner O.C. Bosbyshell updated the situation concerning dollar dies. The following transcript was made from a very poor fair copy made with acidic ink on very thin paper.
RG104 entry 17 box 1
"Mint of the United States
Philadelphia
April 1, 1878
Hon. James Pollock,
Superintendent
Sir:
I have the honor to report that the new dollar dies are working satisfactorily, so far as the mechanical operations are concerned – that is, they seem to be of a proper radius, our presses bring up the work on them with ease, and the coins pile evenly and without rocking.
The dies however, do not stand as well as could be desired. They crack and sink shortly after entering the presses. This would indicate some defect either in the hardening, or in the steel used. During the coinage of March there were used forty-six (46) dies (32 obverse and 14 reverse), and they produced an average of 43,543 pieces per pair. While this appears to be a good average, it must be remembered that in order to produce the amount of coin deemed desirable, we ran many of the dies a longer time in the presses than we ought to have done.
The average number of pieces to a pair of Trade Dollar dies during 1877 was over 100,000.
With dies as well prepared as these seem to have been, we ought, with those at present in use, attain the same results, and so far as I man able to state the difficulty is alone in the steel, or manner of treating it.
Very respectfully,
Your obedient servant
O.C. Bosbyshell, Coiner."
Comments
Sounds like this was the run of all the uber rare 8tf VAMs. 14.20 anyone?
"April 2, 1878
From: Bosbyshell
To: Pollock
Slight alterations were made in the wings of the eagle, and in the olive branch held in its claws, and the border lowered."