If Dahlonega started making coins again...
The_Dinosaur_Man
Posts: 1,164 ✭✭✭✭✭
What would its mintmark be? Would you change Denver's mintmark at all?
Just a fun hypothetical question. Of course, there are no discussions happening anywhere to resurrect the old facility.
Feel free to post your Dahlonega pieces!
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G?
DH? “Dahlonega.
D2
USN & USAF retired 1971-1993
Successful Transactions with more than 100 Members
I can never pronounce or spell Dahlonega so I’d like the whole name spelled out instead of just initials maybe 🤔
Mr_Spud
D¹
I would apply for a job with them!
R2d2
🍑
While the question itself is entirely hypothetical (since such a re-openeing would be excessively improbable), the related question is more meaningful: what mintmark would be adopted if a new mint were opened in some other city whose name began with "D" - and also assuming the Denver mint remained in operation at the same time.
Logically, more letters would be added. A new mint in Detroit, for example, might use "DT", while Dallas might be "DS". On that basis, Dahlonega might be "DL", or perhaps "DA" or "DG".
The precedent for this is, of course, Carson City, the second "mint city beginning with C", which simply added a second letter.
Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, "Meditations"
Apparently I have been awarded the DPOTD twice.
Dahlonega Privy Mark 🌞
Mr_Spud
Yah not sure the south is going to get another mint after how they handled the last batch.
11.5$ Southern Dollars, The little “Big Easy” set
just use a peach
Nice!
Too bad you didn’t get a chance to design the coins with those characters
That be nice to see a floor plan for something like that or an artist version, just saying
No, it should be D1. Dahlonega issued its first coins in 1838. The Denver Mint didn't issue anything until 1906.
@Billjones your right. I'm still looking for a coin from DAHLONEGA. It may have to go on my bucket list.
USN & USAF retired 1971-1993
Successful Transactions with more than 100 Members
A complete collection of Dahlonega obverse mint marked Liberty head half eagles.
A: The year they spend more on their library than their coin collection.
A numismatist is judged more on the content of their library than the content of their cabinet.
Do
The D and C mints were established to coin gold from the Georgia and Carolina gold fields because the journey to Philadelphia was so difficult and hazardous.
If you look at the mint directors reports, https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/publisherdetail/51, you will see the data.
Perhaps the most interesting is 1850, because that includes the first California gold
If you assume all of the gold deposited at Charlotte was from the NC fields and all of the gold deposited at Dahlonega was from GA fields...
NC $6.5m
GA $6m
the first "year" of CA production is almost as much gold as the other fields ever produced.
Skip ahead a few years
$57k in GA gold, mintage of the 1859D $5 eagle is a little over 10k pieces... it's not worth keeping the lights on.
However...
https://dlg.usg.edu/collections/dlg_dahl/history
Could it be?
ANA 50+ year/Life Member (now "Emeritus")
Author: 3rd Edition of the SampleSlabs book, https://sampleslabs.info/
I always thought it was inconsistent that it was too expensive and arduous to transport gold from GA/NC to Philadelphia but then all of the sudden it was no problem at all to transport gold from California into GA/NC.
I’m sure the GA/NC politicians probably overstated the problem.
GA and NC didn't receive gold from CA. Compare the production with the deposits.
Take the 1849 line above. $102k from NC was deposited at Philly, $390k at the Charlotte mint.
In 1849, Charlotte coined 11,634 gold dollars ($11,634). 10,220 quarter eagles ($25,550). 64,828 half eagles ($323,115).
$360,299 in value.
Now per the act of 1837, you could have your deposit coined
but
Note that earlier acts provided for deductions if you wanted your deposit paid faster than it could be coined.
ANA 50+ year/Life Member (now "Emeritus")
Author: 3rd Edition of the SampleSlabs book, https://sampleslabs.info/
Doug Winter frequently writes about the color change in minted coinage at Dahlonega and Charlotte due to the gold being sourced from CA.
Is he wrong? Maybe. He also writes about the poor quality of the 1861-D dollars due to “lack of the rebels minting expertise” as if a bunch of hillbillies descended on the mint and replaced the regular employees.
I looked at ONE YEAR. Things might have changed. You are welcome to read through the reports from 1851 until the mint closed. Left as an exercise for the reader.
ANA 50+ year/Life Member (now "Emeritus")
Author: 3rd Edition of the SampleSlabs book, https://sampleslabs.info/
I’m not saying you’re wrong. I was just under that impression from reading Doug’s books years ago. If true it seemed inconsistent to me anyway as noted above.
The story was a bunch of miners left Dahlonega for California in search of greener pastures. After finding some California gold, some came back to Dahlonega brining their gold with them. According to the sources I have read to peak year for submitting California gold at the Dahlonega Mint was 1853. The mintage for $5 gold coins seems to support the fact that gold was coming from more sources in addition to the Dahlonega area goldfields.
The quality of the 1861-D gold dollars was also due the state of the dies. The “heads side” side was also used for the 1860-D dollars. The “U” in “UNITED” was virtually gone on both.
Honestly I am not against the idea of reopening old mints. It can be done cost effectively and you can have small minting facilities and politicians can say they got federal jobs to their districts without it costing the government anything.
They could easily mint 1000 coins a day at Carson City.
"OD" as they were the "OG" of the "D"
I've been told I tolerate fools poorly...that may explain things if I have a problem with you. Current ebay items - Nothing at the moment
I've thought about this too. It could start with "on deposit" minting where visitors could turn old coins or raw materials in to exchange for new pieces. Any idea how much it would cost to build a working replica of Coin Press No. 1?
Custom album maker and numismatic photographer.
Need a personalized album made? Design it on the website below and I'll build it for you.
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Doesn't have to be the old mint buildings itself, could be a new building, could be one where the US Mint rents out floors to others. Allows for more mixing and matching of mintmarks too.
That's the point though. It should be in the original mint building and location to be authentic. That would mean only Carson City and New Orleans. The original location at Dahlonega exists but not the building. The original building at Charlotte exists but at a different location.
San Francisco is in its third building, Philadelphia is in its fourth building.
I get that but they are a continuation of uninterrupted operations, not a newly built souvenir shop in the local strip mall. The thing that would add legitimacy to restarting a mint would be to do it in an authentic way at the original location.
which gives
ANA 50+ year/Life Member (now "Emeritus")
Author: 3rd Edition of the SampleSlabs book, https://sampleslabs.info/
is the P mint in the same location and building?
Dahlonega still sounds like a NASCAR race to me. “Welcome, race fans, to the 2025 Dahlonega Fo’ Hunnnert.”
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