The E-Sylum:  Volume 5, Number 45, November 10, 2002, Article 6

MINT PROCESSES SOURCE TRACKED

  R. W. Julian and others reported the source of the
  "Mint Processes" booklet described last week.  As you'll
  see, there is more than one "source".

  Mark Borckardt writes: "Regarding Mint Processes of the
  United States":  On my desk is a copy of the 1896 Mint
  Director's Report.   Included, beginning at the bottom of
  page 112 is an article titled "Mint Processes of the United
  States" which includes exactly 15 black and white photos
  along with articles by some of the same people mentioned
  in the E-Sylum."

  George Kolbe agrees: " I think the "booklet" you allude
  to is derived from the 1896 Mint Report (see Kolbe sale
  89, lot 914)."

  Pulling the '96 Mint Report off my library shelf enabled me
  to confirm the origin of my pamphlet.  It must have been
  some sort of offprint or reprint of that section of the Mint
  Report.  Paul Schultz suggested that since the pamphlet has
  no identifying information, it may have been produced
  as an in-house teaching tool as the U.S. Mint.  Interesting
  possibility.

  The pamphlet, whose pages are numbered 3-39, seems to
  exactly match the content beginning at the end of page 112
  of the 1896 Mint report, and ending in the middle of page
  157.

  Dick Johnson takes the origin of the pamphlet back another
  couple of years, and adds some color on why it was
  produced.  He writes:

  "The 39-page pamphlet titled "Mint Processes of the United
  States" is an offprint from the 1894 Annual Report of the
  Director of the Mint.  My notes on the Charles E. Barber
  essay state these were pages 150-152 from that Mint Report.
  The essays of other mint officials undoubtedly followed that.

  This Mint Report covered the year 1893 since it was
  published following the fiscal year which ended June 30,
  1894. It is a nice thick volume in comparison with the other
  Mint Reports which preceded and followed.

  You have to understand what was going on in the Mint at
  that time. In 1891 they had signed construction contracts
  to build the most modern coinage mint in the world at 16th
  & Spring Garden Streets (the so-called third mint in
  Philadelphia).

  What they wanted from each department head was an
  analysis of what each department did in preparation for
  planning the layout of the new mint building. I did research
  on this era of the Philadelphia Mint's history in preparation
  for a film (which was to be produced for this mint's
  centennial by Mike Craven, but that project was abruptly
  halted by the Mike's death in a senseless roadrage
  killing on an L.A. expressway.)

  I had found the blueprints for the Mint building, and
  physically examined the building on every floor even to
  the two-foot thick walls in the basement where bullion
  and coin were once stored. (The building is now a
  community college, but the name "United States Mint"
  is still above the entrance of the original building.)  The
  old pressroom is now the library.  The old walkway
  where visitors could watch coins being struck now
  houses study carrels.

  The building embraced the first use of electricity for
  running coining presses and other equipment.  It had
  elevators. It had telephones. It had water storage tanks
  in the basement. It was the most modern coinage mint
  in the world at the time (and they copied most of this
  building for the Denver Mint build a few years later)."

  [My library has a hole - I have the '93, '95 and '96
  mint reports, but no '94.   I'll put it on my Christmas
  wish list.  -Editor]

  Wayne Homren, Editor

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