A Coin's Life

ASLAN TVorlon,

Why don't you have your cat swallow a penny and then write a story about that coins life!

Title: Glimpse Inside the Mint Part 1 of 2

The New Orleans mint was bustling with activity the morning of January 3, 1897. Henry Walters arrived, hung up his hat and coat and prepared to start his morning routine. Over the next half hour other employees arrived and headed off to their respective jobs. There were 150 men and women who worked at the mint.

Henry's job was operating a blanking machine. The silver strips had been made yesterday, and today it was up to Henry and several other men to punch out half dollar blanks which were needed for coinage. Henry was skilled and could easily churn out 250 blanks per minute; or 15,000 in one hour. After the blanks were punched, they fell into a box which Henry put on a cart and then pulled to the adjusting room to be weighed and inspected. The mint hired women to do this step. The adjusting room consisted of tables and scales, and was unbearable hot at times. The ladies worked 8 hours a day Monday through Saturday weighing the blanks; extremely underweight or overweight ones were tossed in a box to be re-melted.


Photo from the LOC collection

After leaving the adjusting room, the planchets or blanks were taken to the milling and coining room. This room was the heart of the operation. It was here where the blanks became coins. The dies were already in the press; the blanks were dumped in the press and at the flip of a switch the coining process began. Barber half dollars fell from the presses by the thousands. By years end, the numbers would reach into the millions.

To be continued...

Stamping room, Photo from the LOC collection

The next leg on the journey was to the weighing and counting room. George A. Hoffman, originally from New York had moved to New Orleans to take this job when the mint reopened in 1879. The halves arrived in multiple wooden boxes on flat carts. Accuracy was of the utmost importance. George prided himself on his ability to work quickly while ensuring an accurate count.


Weighing and counting room, photo from LOC collection

The last step in the process was bagging up the halves; Andrew J. Morton was given this task. He loved counting coins even if they weren't his. After all, not many people could make that claim. The $500 bags were tossed on a cart, counted and the number of bags recorded on a form before they headed to the vault. Putting coins in the vault was a two man job: one to count the bags and one to pile them in there. The bags of halves would be paid out as banks and businesses requested them.

The process repeated itself day in and day out. Dimes and quarters to silver dollars and gold eagles were issued that year. The workers churned out millions of dollars in gold and silver. So, when you see a well-worn 1897-O half just think it came to be 117 years ago. You are holding history in your hands.

Thanks for the kind words Mr Click. I almost deleted this story several times while writing it, the other ones flowed naturally but this one didn't.

-MV

(Continued from above)

As Friday morning dawned, Joseph arose and dressed for his first day at the mint. He was nervous yet excitedâ€"today he would learn which job would be his. Would he be an assistant to the refiner? Operate a coining press? Work in the counting and bagging room? These questions and other filled his thoughts as he headed down to breakfast. He ate and drank two cups of coffee. Ms. Williams was kind enough to pack him fried chicken, two biscuits and an apple for lunch. Joseph thanked her kindly and headed off for his first day of work.

Upon arriving at the mint, Joseph took his hat off and hung it on the coat rack. He asked the guard standing in the foyer how to get to Superintendent Curry's office; the guard replied that his office was the last door at the end of the hall. Joseph found it without any trouble and knocked before entering. A booming voice said, "Come in" and Joseph walked in and closed the door behind him. "Good morning what can I do for you?" the superintendent said. Joseph responded, "I'm here for a job, I hear you're hiring." "Why yes we are, what are your skills?" was the reply. Joseph stated, "I worked at the San Francisco Mint as a coiner's assistant for 3 years before I heard that a mint was opening up in Carson City." "I knew that the mint would be looking for workers with skills associated with coinage." Curry was silent for a couple of minutes before he said, "You were right we need skilled workers so coinage can begin as soon as Washington gives us the approval needed."


Photo from the Treasury Dept. website

The Superintendent told Joseph that he'd have another worker named Andrew Roberts show him the layout of the mint. When they stepped out in the hallway Andrew was standing in the doorway asking the man inside if he needed help. Curry walked over and said, "This is Joseph Thomas he will be working here with us, will you give him the tour of the mint?" Andrew replied, "Be happy to Mr. Curry." Andrew told Joseph that the mint was easy to navigate once you learn where everything is located. The tour lasted about an hour. Andrew told Joseph that the mint would be fast paced once coinage commenced. They returned to the first floor, Andrew said, "The Superintendent has everyone helping set up the mint, getting ready for the first deposit of precious metal; he wants to show that this frontier institution can supply the coins needed for commerce in this region."

To be continued...

Joseph turned the machine off and handed the coin to Superintendent Curry who was smiling from ear to ear as he showed the massive coin to the group. It was passed around so all could see and feel the coin for himself.

Joseph took the wooden box and dumped the remaining planchets in the hopper, placed the empty box under the ejection shoot and turned the machine on. The planchets came between the two dies one by one; the first few coins that fell into the box had mirror-like surfaces. Gradually, the mirrored surfaces faded to ordinary mint luster. By the end of the day 2,300 of the dollar coins had been minted. Joseph was proud to have been part of this moment in history.


Photo belongs to PCGS Coinfacts, I borrowed it to enhance this story

The silver dollars minted on the 10th were paid out to a man named Mr. Wright, who was a prominent citizen of Carson City the next day. Joseph came to the mint and headed straight to the coining room.

He checked the dies to see if they were suitable or needed replacing. The obverse die was fine but the reverse one needed to be replaced. He went to the die storage room and located a new reverse die. He went back to the coining room where he sat it on a table while he removed the old reverse die. Once it was out of the press, he placed the new reverse die in its place. Joseph took the old reverse die to storage room where he placed it on an unused shelf.

He made his way back to the coining room on the table sat a box of dollar planchets which had been delivered while he was gone. Joseph repeated the process of the day before this time no onlookers or noise except the sound of the coining press. Joseph continued to work at the Mint until it closed its doors in 1893. During his tenure at the Carson City Mint Joseph unknowingly helped coin some rarities.


Sources:
http://www.carsoncitycoinclub.com/
http://www.numismaticnews.net/artic...s-dated-1870
http://www.treasury.gov/about/histo...uction2.aspx
http://www.treasury.gov/about/histo...-City-2.aspx
http://www.pcgscoinfacts.com/Coin/D...6964?redir=t
http://www.nevadaappeal.com/news/lo...nevada-curry

Part Two

... was on an unusually cold winter morning in 1946. By now, my devices were ground down by so many years of friction that I was hardly recognizable. My kind had not been minted for 30 years, and I had overheard a piece on the radio that the newer design, wrongly called "Mercury," was also being abandoned for a new one featuring our late President.

I sat in the register at the general store as I heard the bell ring, which I knew from my many years in registers meant that someone was coming in the front door. I heard the clerk exchange small-talk with the old man who had walked in. After he'd placed his order and it had been bagged up, he handed the clerk two crisp new silver certificates, leaving change due of 23 cents. The grinding clockwork of the register's mechanisms began to operate, and the drawer opened. As I was handed to the old man with a bushy mustache, he examined me momentarily, and then with a half-smile put me in his coat pocket instead of his pocketbook.

Later that afternoon, "Pa," as he was called by all of his large number of descendants, stored me away in an envelope along with several personal papers and a handful of other coins. Why did he find me significant enough not to pass me along? I'll never know, for I was to remain in the envelope, hidden away, and then forgotten, for two more generations before I was to see the light of day again.

Then one night, after being passed to a new family as part of an inheritance, a young boy opened the sealed envelope. As he saw me, his eyes lit up. Not since little Freddie Thompson was given me for Christmas in 1924 had I seen a child filled with so much delight at being presented with me.

He rushed me over to his desk and feverishly thumbed through what he referred to as his "Red Book." After finding my entry in this great catalogue of coinage, he exclaimed, "1897-O! This thing could be worth almost a hundred dollars!"

I was astonished! How could times have changed so much since I had been retired? True, as the boy grew, he realized that in his impetuousness, he over-graded and over-valued me. But still, he considered me a pleasing find, and an important part his collection.

As I write to you my story tonight, I sit securely in a 2x2 and housed in my apartment inside of my owner's coin album. I've shared my story with the many other tenants here, and they've all shared they're tales with me. All, except for the counterfeit Trade dollar on the back page that is. No one has very much to do with him. And for another thing, none of us speaks Mandarin.

Sometimes, I ponder what will become of me. I know my owner now has no intentions of passing me along. Every once in a while, though, I get the old itch to go traveling again. Even though I don't have any more details I can spare to lose, I'd love to rattle around in a change purse again, or give another romantic couple passage to a picture-show, or change hands in a rowdy poker game in the back corner of a smoky barroom.

Who knows ... maybe I've got some traveling to do yet.