A History of the United States Mint

It is a wonder how our economy and country altogether started off with a facility that printed pictures and words on little round metal discs. This building is the United States Mint. Before the mint was established, just less than twenty years after the United States gained independence, the colonists had to live with some sort of coinage. Britain saw to that, providing the colonists with their currency, based off the shilling. After the American Revolution, the colonists stopped using the British shillings, sixpence and threepence. The people then started issuing their own forms of coinage, with shops issuing tokens of trade and private mints minting their own silver and coppers. During this time, our government had not thought of a universal coinage system that everyone would accept. The United States Mint was an important idea to help our country get started.

Around the 1790s, our developing country's government had just started thinking about this important topic. Some ideas were round or square shaped coins, holes in the middle or not, the base unit, and the decimal units. They decided on a round planchet without holes, the base unit was to be a dollar, and the decimal unit was to be a cent. To help the coins reach the ever-expanding reaches of our country, the mint decided to branch out into smaller government mints. There ended up a total of eight mints, few of which are still in use today, most for circulation, while others produce gold and silver bullion for collectors.

The United States Mint was first authorized by the U.S. government in the Coinage Act of 1792. It states that the coin is to have the inscriptions LIBERTY, UNITED STATES of AMERICA, and copper coins must have their denomination on the reverse. The act also provides the location of the mint, to be established in Philadelphia, and provided the first original mint officials. They were a Director, an Assayer, a Chief Coiner, an Engraver, and a Treasurer. The first director of the mint was David Rittenhouse, appointed by President George Washington.

The first Philadelphia mint was known as Ye Olde Mint. The act also authorized the issue of certain denominations. Minted in gold were the Eagle ($10), the Half Eagle ($5), and the Quarter Eagle ($2.50). In silver, the mint produced a dollar, a half dollar, a quarter dollar, a disme (dime), and a half disme (half dime). It is believed that President Washington, who only lived a few blocks from the mint, donated some of his silverware to be used for the minting of some of these silver coins. Finally, minted in copper would be the cent and the half cent. Copper coins were the first coins to be minted, and 11,178 were done so and shipped throughout the United States.

In order to start the minting process though, the mint would first need to make a die of the coin. The mint had a hard time trying to find the right metal to use. They had agreed on steel, but they could not find the right fineness. Once the mint found the right grain to use, the steel then had to go through an annealing, heating, and cooling process that would eventually create the die of the coin. The die would then be engraved in relief of the coin by hand. This idea of minting is still being used today in the current mint branches, except that the dies are engraved by a computer based off the artist's drawings.

The first Philadelphia Mint was the first Federal building built under the Constitution. "Ye Olde Mint" stood facing Seventh Street in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. David Rittenhouse purchased the lot for a sum of a little more than four thousand dollars. The smelt house held the smelting furnace, the original building. In between the smelt house and "Ye Olde Mint" was the mill house, where horses turned a rolling mill on the first floor from the basement. In January of 1816, the smelt and mill houses were destroyed by a fire. The smelt house was left unfixed whereas the mill house was completely destroyed beyond repair. This first mint was shut down in 1833 due to the fire, and a second one opened the same year in Philadelphia.

The second Philadelphia mint opened up after the first one was shut down in 1833, at the intersection of Chestnut and Juniper. This mint is also known as the "Grecian Temple", because of the Greek pillars in the front and back. The machinery from "Ye Olde Mint" was too outdated to be used, so the mint director sent Franklin Peale over to Europe to see the latest in coining processes and machinery. These techniques improved productivity and quality. This second mint lasted through a war, the growth of our country, and new inventions such as the telegraph and the telephone. The lot was then sold and demolished in 1901, as demand surpassed production. The third mint opened up in Philadelphia in 1901 and lasted until 1969, when the fourth and current Philadelphia mint opened. Because of Philadelphia's location on the eastern coast, it could not provide coinage fast enough for the whole country, so the mint directors decided to branch out the mint and created branches all over the country, from Georgia to California, and North Carolina to Colorado.

The Carson City Mint opened up as a branch of the United States Mint in Carson City, Nevada. Located at 600 N. Carson St., it started its production of fifty-seven different types of silver coins in 1870. This mint was placed here to ease the coining of silver, with all of its abundance in the area. It was sold to the state of Nevada in 1939 to be used as a state museum. This mint produced some of the most popular coins of the Morgan Dollar series, which were saved by the government and put into special containers for collectors.

The Denver Mint started out as a private mint called Clark, Gruber & Company. For about three years, they minted gold coins using gold discovered from a nearby mine. In 1863, they were bought by the US Treasury for $25,000. The Denver Mint did not produce gold coinage, though, like the Clark, Gruber & Company did. A reason given by the Director of the Mint states that "... the hostility of the Indian tribes along the routes, doubtless instigated by rebel emissaries and bad white men." This proved the need for a public mint near by the gold mines. The Denver Mint was rebuilt in 1907 and still stands today, providing coins to the people of the United States, primarily west of the Mississippi River.

The San Francisco Mint was completed in 1874, and turned $4 billion worth of gold into coins. This mint was built to mint the gold being found in the California Gold Rush. The San Francisco Mint was built with expertise by Alfred B. Mullet, who knew the California coast line was subject to earthquakes. He guessed right, building the mint so that it came out of the earthquake that hit on April 18^th, 1906 almost undamaged, protecting millions of dollars worth of bullion being held inside. This Old San Francisco Mint was shut down in 1937 when operations were moved to the new San Francisco Mint, where today's coins are produced.

The New Orleans mint, another branch, opened up for coining procedures in 1838 in New Orleans, Louisiana. The New Orleans mint produced coins in silver and in gold; the silver coinage ranging from three-cent pieces to the popular Morgan dollar; and gold pieces ranging from the one dollar "Liberty Head" to the twenty-dollar "Liberty Head". The mint lasted until 1909, but had stopped the minting process in 1861 when it was taken over by the Confederacy, which used the plant to mint its own coinage until the silver ran out. It was then used to quarter the troops until it was taken back by Union naval forces later that year. The mint was then reopened in 1878 and produced mainly silver coinage, including the Morgan Dollar, one of the most popular coins for collecting. Two years before closing, this mint produced 5.5 million silver twenty-centavo pieces for the Mexican government. The New Orleans mint stopped the minting process in 1909.

The Charlotte and Dahlonega Mints first opened in the late 1830s. These mints were built only for the minting of gold bullion. These two mints were created by the same act that brought the New Orleans mint to life, signed by President Andrew Jackson. All coins coming from Charlotte mint had a "C" for a mint mark, and Dahlonega produced coins with a "D" mint mark, not to be confused with the later Denver mint mark. During the Civil War, since North Carolina and Georgia are in the south, the Confederate party took over the Charlotte and Dahlonega mints for its use. Because they didn't get much use out of it, the mints were turned into hospitals. The Dahlonega mint was destroyed by a fire in 1878, and was never rebuilt. The Charlotte mint was shut down in 1913, used as a Red Cross station in WWI, and opened as a museum to the public in 1931.

These branches of the United States Mint produced millions of coins each year for the general public to use. Some of these mint branches are still in use today, producing billions of coins as this is being written. Only the Philadelphia and Denver mints produce the coins that will be used in circulation. The San Francisco Mint is still in use today, but for something else. It produces denominations up to a dollar, but they are polished with a proof-like surface and encased in a special holder, a Proof Set, for coin collectors, also known as numismatists. Philadelphia and Denver also produce sets like the Proof Sets, a Mint Set, except the coins inside do not have the mirror like surface. The United States mint was important in starting off our country, economically, socially, and politically.

Sources:

Bowers, Q. David. "Reasons for Being." Coin World 17 Nov. 2008: 36. Coin World is the most read periodical of the coin collecting world. There are multiple articles providing readers with up to date information regarding there hobby. It also provides historical information about the US Mint and its coins.

Reed, Fred. "The Week That Was." Coin World 11 Aug. 2008: 68. Coin World is a weekly magazine that is published for readers and hobbyists alike. It is filled with information about current news on United States coins, and even with historical information for the early type collector.

Attebury, Nancy. Out and About at the United States Mint. Minneapolis: Picture Window, 2006. This picture book provides a great start for kids and young numismatists looking to learn about the United States Mint or the hobby of coin collecting.

"Coins of the United States." Britannica. 15th ed. 2003. This encyclopedia provides a brief article with sufficient detail about early United States coinage. It includes the coins of the colonies and the coins that the U.S. was still using from England.

"History of United States Currency." World Book. 2004 ed. 2004. This source tells the reader the basics of United States and colonial American coinage. After reading this article, the reader will know that the first American coins were from England, then the colonies started to mint their own, which then evolved into the mint.

Taxay, Don. The U.S. Mint and Coinage. New York: Arco Publishing Company, 1966. This book goes into great detail about the creation of the United States Mint and its branches. It is packed with information about the different branches, the coins minted, how they were minted, and who made the designs.

Yeoman, R.S. The Official Red Book, a Guide Book of United States Coins. USA: Whitman, 2005. This book provides an in-depth look at coins, their history, and the minting process. This book also provides readers with an up to date price guide on current and past United States and colonial coinage.