VISITING THE NEW ORLEANS MINT MUSEUM

The New Orleans Mint opened in 1838 and was among the first of three branch facilities established by the United States Mint that year. The New Orleans Mint, with its coins bearing an O mint mark, was by far the longest-lived and most productive of that trio of first branch mints, which also included a facility in Dahlonega, Georgia, and another in Charlotte, North Carolina; those latter two mints, situated near 1820s gold rush territory in the lower Appalachian Mountains, produced solely gold coinage. Meanwhile, the New Orleans Mint struck both gold and silver coins, doing so during a timeframe that spanned some 71 years.

It wasn’t seven straight decades of operation for the New Orleans Mint… In 1861, the United States Civil War saw occupation of the facility by Southern Rebels, who occupied all three mints in the South. The Confederates intended to make the New Orleans Mint a headquarters for coinage production in the Confederate States of America, for which New Orleans would have proven to be a strategically important city both in terms of its large population and major seaport.

However, in 1862 Union forces reclaimed the New Orleans Mint building, which years later saw use as an assay office beginning in 1876 and returned to minting coins in 1879. Some 30 years later, in 1909, the last coins rolled off presses at the New Orleans Mint and the building was formally decommissioned as a mint in 1911. The assay operations shut down there in 1932 and the building served as a Federal prison until 1943, after which it became a storage site for the United States Coast Guard. The state of Louisiana took ownership of the building in 1965, with the building converted into a branch of the Louisiana State Museum in 1981 and serving a role as a museum of both New Orleans minting and coinage as well as jazz music – a cultural touchstone of the city known as The Big Easy.

What’s it Like to Visit the New Orleans Mint Museum?
The New Orleans Mint Museum offers three stories of attractions, including exhibits pertaining to the New Orleans Mint and its coinage on the first floor, several rooms showcasing collections of jazz history mostly confined to the second floor, and a theater for performing arts on the third. This New Orleans landmark is an absolute must-see attraction for any coin collector visiting the city, and not only because it offers a well-rounded body of numismatic material. It is the oldest existing structure to have served as a United States Mint facility.

To read the complete article, see:
Visiting The New Orleans Mint Museum (https://www.pcgs.com/news/visiting-the-new-orleans-mint-museum)

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