THE PHILADELPHIA MINT
In March 1791, Congress passed a resolution asking President George Washington to organize a mint and coinage, but progress was slow at first. In his annual address to Congress of Oct. 25, the president pointedly told the legislators that a written law was needed. The hint was taken and the result was the basic mint law signed by the president on April 2, 1792.
It is of course one thing to pass a law creating a mint but quite another to put everything into practice. Within a matter of days, however, the president had decided on David Rittenhouse, considered the most eminent scientist in America, as the first mint director. Rittenhouse at first declined the honor due to an ongoing state of ill health but did agree to manage affairs until someone else was chosen.
The Mint was to be in Philadelphia because a law of 1790 required that certain federal entities had to be situated in the nation’s capital. This proved to be a problem after 1800 when the capital was moved to Washington. As a result, Congress had to regularly pass special bills mandating that the Mint remain in Philadelphia.
Rittenhouse did as promised but in due course felt that his health was enough improved to accept the position on a formal basis, and he was soon approved by the Senate. His first task was to find an able associate who would superintend the practical aspects of the new institution, such as machinery and the erection of the necessary buildings. He chose Henry Voight, whose official position would be chief coiner but who would be considerably more than what that title implied.
Not long after he was approved by the Senate, Rittenhouse made an arrangement with John Harper for the use of a building located at the northeast corner of Sixth and Cherry Streets in Philadelphia. These temporary quarters would be the home of the Mint until the latter part of
August. The temporary mint was located on the main floor of the Harper building, not the basement as sometimes reported.
It has been fashionable among some writers to claim that there really was no mint in Philadelphia until construction began on the new buildings at the end of July 1792. This is a misunderstanding of what a mint really is. A mint is machinery and workers, regardless of where they are housed. The temporary location in the Harper building does not make that location any less a mint than the later permanent structures.
At about the same time, Rittenhouse negotiated with Frederick Hailer for the purchase of a property on Seventh Street, a few blocks south of the Harper building. The purchase price agreed upon, £1,600 Pennsylvania currency ($4,266.67), was submitted to the president, who agreed
to the transaction on June 9. It took a few weeks before all the necessary legal formalities were completed, the actual payment being made on July 18.
Because there was some urgency to the beginning of coinage, by early June Rittenhouse and Voight had arranged for the hiring of several workmen. (Machinery, including rollers and a small coining press, was obtained from John Harper, who had been involved in the New Jersey copper coinage during the 1780s.) One of the workmen executed the half disme dies from designs prepared by Italian artist Joseph Ceracchi. In early July, Dr. Rittenhouse then formally requested permission from the president to begin actual coinage.
Half disme coinage began about July 11, 1792, and was completed within a few days. Most of this first coinage (1,500 pieces) was paid out to Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, who had deposited 75 Spanish dollars for this purpose. As it is not possible, for technical reasons, to strike exact 1,500 half dismes from $75 worth of silver, the true July mintage may be estimated at 1,600 or 1,700 pieces.
Once the half disme coinage was out of the way, Voight concentrated on other matters. An old distillery stood on the site, behind two relatively new houses facing Seventh Street. The distillery building was demolished in early August 1792 and a brick structure started at the rear of the property.
The two buildings at the front of the property underwent extensive renovation. Brick retaining walls were built at strategic points in the basement and first floors so that the structures would withstand the weights of the machines to be installed as well as the heavy pounding associated with such work. The same was true for the brick building erected at the rear of the property.
One of the houses at the front was remodeled in part as living quarters for Chief Coiner Voight and his family, which consisted of his wife Margaret and several children. The primary reason was added security with someone living on the premises but was also clearly an inducement for Henry Voight to join the mint staff.
By early September, enough work had been completed for Voight to take up residence in the Mint and the workmen to begin preparing for coinage. It took time for them to learn the use of the various machines, and no doubt considerable time was spent in practice runs with the rolling machines and planchet cutters.
The Nov. 6, 1792, presidential address to Congress mentioned the half disme coinage, thus making the public aware of it. It is known that there was an additional coinage of half dismes in 1792, and the likely time was immediately after the president’s message, perhaps in midNovember. In all there is circumstantial evidence that the total mintage of half dismes in 1792 was about 2,000 pieces.
The rise in copper prices during the latter part of 1792 caused delays in the start of coinage, but in January 1793 Congress reduced the legal weight of the copper coins, allowing Director Rittenhouse to order the start of coinage. The first regular mintage was of the famed Chain cents, the initial delivery of struck pieces being made on March 1, 1793.
Silver coinage began in October 1794, followed by gold in July 1795. These new coinages meant that additional buildings were soon erected on the Mint property, mostly of wood. Special structures were created, for example, for the blacksmith to do his work.
It is worth mentioning that visitors were welcome at the Mint from 1793 onwards. They were of course accompanied by an official, often the chief coiner in person, to explain the intricacies of coinage.
Presidents also visited the Mint on occasion. Washington is known to have inspected the work from time to time and other chief executives, such as James Madison in 1817, would stop in when convenient. The presidential visits came at a time when the Mint was an important government institution, but as its importance declined so did the visits.
It had been Rittenhouse’s plan to install a steam engine, but the idea foundered on the cost as it was felt that Congress would never pay the several thousand dollars necessary for such equipment. As a result, horses were used to turn the gears driving the rolling mills; they were never used for the screw presses, however. (Oxen had been tried in the early days, but horses soon proved to be the more reliable.)
As the Mint matured in the early 1800s, additional buildings were built though no precise record exists for the locations and specific usage until the late 1820s. All of this would change on the morning of Jan. 11, 1816.
We find an account of what happened in a Philadelphia newspaper of the following day: “About two o’clock yesterday morning, a fire broke out in a part of the back buildings belonging to the Mint of the United States ... The machinery employed in preparing the gold and silver bullion for coinage has suffered considerable injury but little or no loss, either in the bullion, or coins, of the precious metals, will be sustained. The front part of the building, containing the coining presses, the books, and clerk’s office, with the engraver’s and assayer’s departments is uninjured.”
Mint Director Robert Patterson, in office since July 1805, took the opportunity to write President James Madison, asking for funds to not only repair the damage but to create a more efficient mint. Included in these estimates was a steam engine to drive the rolling mills, the machines that flattened the ingots of gold or silver down to the thickness of a coin. The steam engine request was approved and the machinery in place by early 1817.
Over the next several months there was strenuous activity at the Mint as new buildings were erected and old ones repaired or modified. By the spring of 1817, all was in readiness and silver coinage resumed. There had been no interruption of copper coinage as planchets were imported from England and the screw presses had not been damaged by the fire.
Although Mint Director Patterson had updated the machinery and buildings of the Mint, the continued growth of deposits, especially silver, and increasingly heavy copper coinage, pushed the available men and machinery to the limit. There were often lengthy delays from the time bullion was deposited until payment in new coins was made.
Robert Patterson died in July 1824 and his successor, Dr. Samuel Moore, realized that drastic changes had to be made. He had been a member of Congress and friends still there were effectively used to pass the necessary legislation in March 1829 for a new mint. Sufficient funds were made available and a choice location on Chestnut Street was purchased.
Construction of the new mint began in the early summer of 1829. To mark the placement of the cornerstone on July 4, Moore ordered that the coinage of half dimes, in abeyance since 1805, be resumed on that day, with specimens given out to selected officials as a memento of the occasion.
The design of the new mint was based on an ancient Greek temple on the Illysus River, not far from Athens. It was designed in the Ionic style by William Strickland, a brilliant architect who also prepared the plans for the branch mints in the late 1830s as well as a number of other government buildings.
Originally intended to open in the spring of 1831, the usual cost overruns and certain modifications found necessary delayed the schedule. It was not until January 1833 that key pieces of equipment were moved to the new structure. (Outdated machinery was simply left at the old site and sold with the remainder of the property in 1835.)
The First Mint, as it is usually called, underwent changes after being sold. The premises were rented out to a variety of enterprises until purchased by Frank Stewart. He tried to interest both State and Federal officials into preserving the old structures, but in the end failed. In the early 1900s the entire site was razed and replaced by modern structures.
The new building on Chestnut Street, now called the Second Mint, was an enormous improvement over its predecessor. Bullion now moved faster through the Mint though there were still delays. There was no government bullion fund with which to strike coins in advance and it would not be until January 1837 that this needed improvement would come about.
Serving the nation well until the 1850s, the Second Mint underwent radical changes in 1855 and 1856. The thenmint director, James Ross Snowden, saw the need for improvements, such as fireproofing every department as well as utilizing a host of suggestions that had been made over the years.
Collectors became more interested in the Mint during the mid-1850s. Proof coins, for example, had been struck as early as 1817 for private citizens but there was little demand until after 1855 because of so few collectors. By the time of the Civil War, there were several-hundred active collectors purchasing proof sets each year and that interest has continued to grow, even to the present day.
From 1856 to the late 1870s, there were little or no changes to the Second
Mint. By 1880, however, the heavier coinages, as compared to the early 1830s when the structure was built, was pushing the available space to the limit. Even the relatively small courtyard in the rear had an increasing number of temporary wooden buildings.
Through the 1880s and early 1890s, there was agitation by the mint directors for a new building that would allow for future expansion. Finally, in the late 1890s, Congress did approve a new building that would be built on Spring Garden Street.
The Second Mint was torn down shortly after the Mint location was changed. When the cornerstone was found, there was quite a scramble over the contents, which, according to 1829 newspaper accounts, included a 1792 half disme. No one ever admitted to having found it, however.
The size of the Third Mint required, as expected, several years of effort by construction crews, and it did not open until early in 1901. The new mint had been well designed, as had its predecessor, and was considered as a State of the Art minting facility by all who visited it, including representatives from European mints.
Unlike the Second Mint, minor coinage at the Third Mint was done almost entirely in-house. From the 1860s on, planchets for the minor coinage had been made outside the Mint, but the post-1901 building allowed for this work to be resumed there. (At present, of course, planchets for the cent coinage are again made outside the Mint for financial reasons.)
By the early 1960s, even the Third Mint was showing its age and there were increasing calls for a Fourth Mint. Construction began in the mid-1960s, and work was more or less complete by 1969 when the official dedication took place. (The Third Mint building was not demolished, as was the fate of its two predecessors, but is in use today for other purposes.)
When the Fourth Mint opened in 1969, the work was similar in nature to that done in the predecessor building except that there was more open space. It was not long, however, until technology forced changes. Within a few years, the Mint no longer rolled out ingots of metal to create planchets but purchased either ready-made planchets (in the case of the cent) or strips of metal from which the planchets would be punched out.
Those visiting Philadelphia ought not to miss a visit to the Mint. There are balconies around the minting areas from which the coining process can be viewed, from punching out the planchets to the actual striking process.
■ When was the last time there was a coin flip before the Super Bowl? I know they use medals that are commonly called “coins” now.
The Highland Mint in Melbourne, Fla., has had the contract to strike “coins” used at the coin toss at the beginning of the Super Bowl since 1994 and sells replicas of the earlier medals back as far as Super Bowl IV. Since this mint offers a complete set of “replicas of the game coins for Super Bowl 1 to 56,” it appears a coin was never used in the coin toss. The Pro Football Hall of Fame has not yet responded to my inquiry.
■ Can I tell if I am getting a roll of Brilliant Uncirculated coins I purchased from a dealer without opening the roll?
This is why you should do business with a dealer with a long and stellar reputation. If a roll has been bank- wrapped, it is likely the coins are uncirculated if the end coins so appear. Rolls wrapped by hand can and have been manipulated. I am aware of rolls that contained foreign coins, tokens and even marbles. Be familiar with the person from whom you buy rolls.
■ I’ve seen date rolls of proof coins for sale. Can I purchase rolls like this directly from the Mint?
The Mint sells individual pieces and proof coin sets, but it does not sell rolls. Some dealers and possibly collectors, who apparently must have a lot of patience, will break proof coins out of sets, then assemble them into rolls.
■ Is it a better investment to buy bank coin rolls?
Coin rolls issued by banks have been rolled by a machine, with the ends of these rolls having been crimped. While the intention of the bank is to roll freshly minted uncirculated coins, there is still no guarantee the coins will be of high quality should you choose to open the roll. Uncirculated coins offered by coin dealers are scrutinized prior to being put into rolls. The down side, of course, is a dealer will be watching for rare varieties for which a banker will not be looking.
■ Do all banks offer coin rolls?
All banks give coin wrappers away at no cost; however, not all banks want to accept rolled coins. It helps to be a regular bank customer if you want this service. Remember, too, although it may appear to you when you get rolls, go through them, then return the remainders that there is no cost involved, this isn’t true. The bank still pays freight for all coins it ships or receives from their local Federal Reserve.