A Collection Of What We Love In Numismatic History

Seated Liberty sketch by Christian Gobrecht

This is a postcard depicting homeless earthquake victims camping out in front of the undamaged San Francisco Mint:

thanks for posting the postcard. it is stark that the SF mint was one of the few buildings that survived the earthquake.

this picture taken after the earthquake shows the SF Mint at center.

In short, there was a well inside the Mint building.

From Bellevue Rare Coins:

The One Thing That Saved the San Francisco Mint
September 27, 2014, by brc_admin

In the mid-nineteenth century in San Francisco, one thing was on everybody's mind: gold! But the nearest mint to the California Gold Rush was all the way in New Orleans. A mint was badly needed to turn the huge supplies of raw gold into coins and bullion. In 1854, the first San Francisco Mint was established. However, the design of the second mint is the reason why there is still a mint in San Francisco.

After its first year in operation, four million dollars in gold coins had been minted at the first San Francisco Mint. With a growing supply of raw gold and not enough space to process it, it was clear that a bigger facility was needed. So the construction of the second mint began. Twenty years after the first San Francisco Mint opened, the second location, now known as the Old United States Mint began minting coins. The new building boasted an enclosed courtyard with a well in the center, a feature that would soon be very important.

The San Francisco earthquake of 1906, and the subsequent fires, could have been the end of the Old United States Mint. But thanks to the well at the center of the mint building, and hard work from Mint Superintendent Frank Leach, the Old United States Mint was one of the few buildings that survived the fire. This was a fortunate turn of events, because at the time of the earthquake, the building was home to one third of the nation's bullion.

After the earthquake and fires, the Old United States Mint carried on, operating until 1937, when the New Mint opened. In 1955, upgrades at the Denver and Philadelphia mints made the New Mint in San Francisco obsolete. Operations were suspended and the building was converted to storage. A coin shortage led to its reopening in the late 1960s when San Francisco also took over most of the proof minting from Philadelphia.

For the better part of the last 40 years, the New Mint in San Francisco has primarily minted proof coins. While the New Mint is not open to the public, the Old United States Mint serves as both a museum and a venue available to rent for events.

Talk about context.

Thank you for both posts, numismatic student.

Scholarship now points to this 500 quint coin to be the first coin minted by the United States of America.


http://media.npr.org/assets/img/201...s800-c85.jpg


Is this America's First Coin?
By Scott Neuman of NPR on 8/1/2017

In 2013, David McCarthy spotted a rare coin in an auction catalog and immediately had a hunch it was the first coin minted by the fledgling United States of America in 1783. Not the first run of coins, mind you, but the very first one.

McCarthy, an experienced numismatist (coin collector) bought the silver coin for $1.18 million.

The Associated Press writes:

"The day of the 2013 auction in Schaumburg, Illinois, McCarthy sat in his hotel room with his files and air conditioning cranked on high. He methodically convinced his boss, Donald Kagin, that the coin up for auction was the nation's first. It was a nuanced case since other dealers claimed it was a forgery. But the initial explanation was that mints tended to add inscriptions to the steel dies used to make coins after having engraved the images."

He spent the next four years digging up evidence to prove that he had indeed purchased the fabled first "500" quint.

What first caught McCarthy's eye was the fact that the coin, which was unmistakably one of two rare quints, had no inscription on the front. A similar coin, with a Latin inscription that translates "New Constellation," was found in 1860. The one McCarthy bought was found about 15 years later and was therefore designated "quint Type 2."

He searched through the National Archives, but got conflicting answers. Then, as he was reviewing the receipts for the steel dies used to make the coins, he found evidence that "two of the dies had been recycled and refined after the first coin was struck," the AP writes.

"He compared the beadings on the edges of the different coins, as well as a dent in the eye at the center of the [inscribed] "500" coin and its plain cousin. The evidence all pointed to him having uncovered the nation's first coin," the news agency says.

The president of the American Numismatic Association, Jeff Garrett, has pronounced McCarthy's research as "really, really good."

If McCarthy's evidence is solid, the coin he has was mentioned in the diary of Robert Morris, a Philadelphia merchant who financed the American Revolution and signed the Declaration of Independence. From 1781 to 1784, when the young nation was still governed by the Articles of Confederation, Morris served as the superintendent of finance for the United States.

In an April 2, 1783, entry in his diary, Morris writes of "a Piece of Silver Coin being the first that has been struck as an American Coin."

A week later, he was visited by Alexander Hamilton - who was to become the first Treasury secretary of the United States six years later and who presumably examined the coin himself. Thereafter, Morris writes, the two corresponded on the "subject of the Coin."

A fuller set of coins was minted on April 22 and forwarded to Thomas Jefferson so a third Founding Father could weigh in on the design.

Morris' coin was meant to demonstrate a prototype numerical currency system that would be based on the so-called Spanish dollar. It was never adopted.

Coin Week writes: "It is believed that these two Quints are survivors of that [Morris system] project, as are five or six pieces of other denominations."

How much is McCarthy's quint worth? The AP quotes the ANA's Garrett as saying the closest comparison might be a 1794 U.S. silver dollar that sold for $10 million four years ago. It's not just the coin itself, but the story that goes with it that makes it valuable, Garrett says.

And there's no question that if McCarthy is right, his quint has a fascinating story to tell.

It would have been interesting to see how well the strike quality on the starry side (obverse?!) would have held up in production. That is a really detailed coin!

An awesome thread keeps getting bettter!

A great design by V.D.B. there, but I guess they opted to continue with the Morgans instead.
Found this info right here in CCF
http://goccf.com/t/287506