Revisiting The Branch Mints Of 1838

PCGS - The long and colorful story of the United States Mint is analogous to that of our country's epic growth, spreading outward from the Eastern Seaboard and the nation's former capital city of Philadelphia westward to new frontiers. When the United States Mint was established in Philadelphia in 1792, the United States was a fledgling nation of about 4 million people living in 15 eastern states. Even after the seat of government was officially moved from Philadelphia to the District of Columbia in 1800, the nation's one-and-only United States Mint facility stayed put.


Capped Bust half dollar, 1838-O 50C, BM, PCGS PR64BM

The Philadelphia Mint was running at full tilt in the early 1800s. The humble facility, consisting of a few small buildings on a tightly packed lot in the heart of Philadelphia, was churning out a steady stream of coinage - but not nearly enough to provide an ample supply of coins for the young, growing nation. At the time, the United States Mint was running its operations with little available financial resources, but a lot of brawn - horses helped power the rolling presses, while human muscle handled the manual flywheel coin presses.


Classic Head $5, 1838-C $5, PCGS MS63

In those early days, there was barely enough United States coinage for each American to rub two federally minted coins together, but the nation wasn't necessarily facing much of a coin shortage. The Spanish Pillar Dollar, a coin that largely inspired the United States silver dollar, was one of many foreign coins freely circulating in the growing nation to help fill domestic commerce needs. It was a situation that persisted well into the 19th century until foreign coins were demonetized in the United States in 1857. By then, the United States Mint had been in existence for some 65 years and had made tens of millions of coins - finally enough to provide a plentiful supply of coinage for a rapidly expanding nation. But the United States Mint didn't accomplish this with only one coin-production facility in Philadelphia.

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