In 1909, how long did it take to make 484,000 Lincoln cents in San Francisco
cj415
Posts: 13 ✭✭
As I stated in another thread a few weeks ago, I'm acquiring a 1909-S VDB. We all know the SF mint made 484,000 of them, but my question is... how long did that run of 484,000 Lincoln cents take? Is that a 1-hour run? 1-day run? A 1-week run?
According to a few websites, in 2019, pennies are produced at 1,040 per second. That means that 484,000 can be made in 465 seconds, or just under 8 minutes. It's amazing to think that those little Lincoln cents that are selling for thousands of dollars 110 year after being produced could have all been produced in a single afternoon in San Francisco.
Any ideas on 1909 production time?
0
Comments
I would guess much longer than 8 minutes. Maybe a few weeks.
Dies were shipped to SF from Philly on June 22. The new cent was released on Aug 2nd. On Aug 5th striking was suspended for three days to remove the VDB initials.
So a few weeks is probably a good guess. RB probably has better info.
Lance.
I don't think they struck any pennies.
If those numbers are correct the mint would only have to operate less than 2 weeks a year.
Great transactions with oih82w8, JasonGaming, Moose1913.
The U.S. Mint disagrees:
Penny
The “Union Shield” theme is the current design of the U.S. one-cent coin. The U.S. Mint first issued this design in 2010. The obverse (heads) shows the image of President Abraham Lincoln used on the penny since 1909.
The penny was one of the first coins made by the U.S. Mint after its establishment in 1792. The design on the first penny was of a woman with flowing hair symbolizing liberty. The coin was larger and made of pure copper, while today’s smaller coin is made of copper and zinc.
https://www.usmint.gov/coins/coin-medal-programs/circulating-coins/penny
I assume you are asking only about the time it took to strike the coins, and not the time it took to melt and alloy the bronze, cast the ingots, roll the ingots, punch the blanks and upset the blanks.
Note: The Internet is not your friend. The "fluff" you have found and posted was written in the very recent past by young government flunkies who know nothing about our coinage for U.S. citizens - most of whom also know nothing about our coinage!
Therefore, while the Mint did strike a number of cents, there we no pennies struck.
PS You may wish to consult one of the older publications written by folks who actually were informed: Domestic and Foreign Coins Manufactured by Mints of the United States 1792-1965. NO PENNIES were struck at the U.S. Mints during that time period for the U.S or any other country!
I made no claim about the knowledge of the writer. If you have a problem with what sort of information the mint finds acceptable to provide to the world, you can take it up with them.
I'd suggest googling "pedant", but I'm sure you have no need to, do you?
After I made a common joke we all use on each other (cents vs penny), you posted modern Mint-sourced "fluff" not suitable for numismatists in a VERY LAME ATTEMPT to correct me. That is the only "problem" I have.
I don't care if you or the Mint disagrees. I call them pennies all the time by habit too. That does not make it right. It just shows my ignorance or laziness.
I wasn't attempting to correct you, I was making a joke about your joke. I guess you didn't get it, and it touched a nerve. My apologies.
Accepted.
The Mint needs to get with the program.
On a lighter note, I took a lady friend to a local, regional show a few years ago. We stopped by one of the well known copper dealers in attendance. The good fellow handed her a quite pricey coin to look at, She asked how a penny could be so expensive. The dealer very nicely and patiently explained that it was not a penny but a cent and went on for a couple minutes about the history of the two coins.
All good until we went to the next table. It was Charmy -- the Penny Lady. It caused a bit of confusion.
I think we call them "Cents" for the same reason we tend to drink "Coffee" instead of tea. Penny seems to me like the common, generic term but I always try to call them Cents which most would agree is what they are.
Another thread senselessly hijacked!
And we still don't know how long it took the coin factory to print the pennies. Darn!
By bad... I originally posted with the word "penny" in there and edited it out, but it caught fire. For the record, I call all facial tissues "Kleenex" and I call all small round candies "LifeSavers" even if they don't have a hole in the middle. I also still say that that I'm going to "tape a TV show" even though I haven't used tape for years and years.
I think there are some terms, like "pennies", that are not entirely accurate, but are well enough understood. I actually think that it's interesting that the Mint calls them pennies. I don't think it's just one person making that decision either. Many people have to review content before it goes out to the public on sites, so I assume that they are fine with the colloquial term as well since it's so widely understood.
Thanks for the clarification on the dates... I had heard the August 2nd release date and the August 5th stoppage, but I hadn't heard they the dies were sent to San Francisco on June 22. Accounting for shipping, setup and installation, and the actual run, a few weeks sounds about right.
That’s centslessly.
Do we know how many presses they had suitable for striking cents?
In January and February of 1922 the Denver Mint struck 7,236,667 cents (gross production with a little over 1% spoilage) over 41 working days, assuming a five day week. That's approx. 176,500 coins per day on average. Looking at the die record usage book I am pretty sure that they were using two presses, but I may be wrong.
So, using the same equipment with a similar spoilage rate the San Francisco Mint could have struck 484,000 1909-SVDB cents in just under three days, assuming that the planchets were already made and ready to strike.
If they used half as many presses it would have taken twice as long, etc.
TD
Roger Burdette just informed me that the 1909-SVDB production began on July 30, which I looked up and it was a Friday, and ended on August 5. Eliminating the weekend that is five working days, assuming a five-day week.
So, they must have had one press running.
...yet the mercury dime goes uncontested.
As I read this thread, a thought occurred to me... I have never wondered about the time it took to mint a run of coins...
I guess I have too many hobbies and do not devote enough time to coins...However, that is one of the reasons I enjoy this forum... I learn so much here....even when I am not seeking the information, there it is...Cheers, RickO
Seems I also remember reading that they stopped minting 1909s Indian cents a few months earlier. Both of these coins were likely sitting in buckets next to each other in the SF mint back in 1909. Now they are sitting next to each other in my safe.
For your viewing pleasure.
Successful transactions with : MICHAELDIXON, Manorcourtman, Bochiman, bolivarshagnasty, AUandAG, onlyroosies, chumley, Weiss, jdimmick, BAJJERFAN, gene1978, TJM965, Smittys, GRANDAM, JTHawaii, mainejoe, softparade, derryb, Ricko
Bad transactions with : nobody to date
Don't bring him into it.
Keeper of the VAM Catalog • Professional Coin Imaging • Prime Number Set • World Coins in Early America • British Trade Dollars • Variety Attribution
When figuring out mintage times for dollars, I use the rate of 80 coins per minute (4800 coins per hour). This comes out to 100 hours of run time for such a press making cents at that rate. What I don't know is if the 80 coins per minute rate is accurate for cents. I would imagine it would be higher than that -- less pressure, lighter press permitting faster coinage.
Keeper of the VAM Catalog • Professional Coin Imaging • Prime Number Set • World Coins in Early America • British Trade Dollars • Variety Attribution
LOL, almost spit out my coffee!
Don't forget to factor in down time for routine maintenance of the press, changing dies, etc.
The GM Roller Press worked on back in the 1960's could produce an amazing number of coins per minute when it was running, but as I understand the problem the problem was it was so complicated that something would break down on average after eight minutes of running, and it might take four hours to disassemble it to change one die.
That's why they tried to create a system to segregate the output from each die pair (and the dies were coded with things like "13L" to test the segregator) so the problem coins could be remelted, and that was way too complicated, and the whole thing was scrapped.
Eliminating the weekend that is five working days, assuming a five-day week.
my original thought was that it'd be done in about one calendar week.
All you show-offs with your shiny VDBs.
The pardon is for tyrants. They like to declare pardons on holidays, such as the birthday of the dictator, or Christ, or the Revolution. Dictators should be encouraged to keep it up. And we should be encouraged to remember that the promiscuous dispensation of clemency is not a sign of political liberality. It is instead one of those valuable, identifying marks of tyranny.
Charles Krauthammer