Weekly Chillicothe crisis. (Chillicothe, Livingston Co., Mo.) 1878-19??, 1884-01-03
A VISIT TO THE ASSAY OFFICE.
How Hard Money Ia Made-The Work OF
Weighing and AssayIng.

How Hard Money is Made-The Work OF
Weighing and Assaying.
New York Tribune,
1--WE don't make money here" said
Philip Van Wyck, the courteous chief
clerk of the assay office to Tribune
reporter day or two ago; "that is,
we don't convert bullion into coin.
We receive gold and silver from de.
positors, melt and assay the bullion,
form it into bars and ship the bars to
the Philadelphia mint, and in the course
of few days that institution sends us
back the coin"
"But does the depositor have to wait
for payment until the coin gets bac..
from Philadelphia" asked the re-
porter.
"Not at ALL" said the chief clerk;
"the government furnishes us with n
bullion fund amounting to over $685.
O00,0 200, Out Of which W pay tho de-
positor just rs soon as the fineness OF
his metal is determined by assay, the
weight ascertained, and the value cal
culated. In fact, all our deposits, ex-
cept in cases of remelt and reassay, are
made within two days.
"Now," said he, picking up bright
new double eagle, "you know how
easy it is to spend that coin, but unless
you are familiar with the work you can
form no idea of the time and labor it
took to make it. From the time the
bullion from which this double eagle
was made reached the mint until it
was converted into coin it had passed
through no less than ten different
processes, such as melting, alloying,
forming the metal into ingots, rolling
the ingots into strips the thickness of
the coin, cutting from the strips the
'planchets' or blanks annealing,
milling, and adjusting the BLANKS"
and coming or stamping the pieces,
besides sundry minor operations Incl
dental to minting, Now, examine that
coin closely under the glass and see
how well the work is executed The
Romans eXcelled in the art of On
craving, and many of their coins were
masterpieces. But we cannot afford to
throw up our central designs in such
bold relief as the Romans did, for in
the harry and hustle of our day and the
rapid handling and piling of coins we
would soon wear the face of the rod
dess and the wings off the eagle. So
while our designs are in bold reliui,
yot we make them low and protect them
as much as possible from abrasion and
wear by throwing up the edge of the
blank, technically called milling
"The manufacture of dies, or the
art Of die sinking" has reached great
perfection at the Philadelphia mint" g."
continued Mr.. Van Wyck, land all the
coinage dies for other mints are made
at that institution. Tho artist first
makes the design and then a model of
it in wax three or four times larger
than the deSireu coin. From In
model an electrolypcis is taken, and then
tue design is transferred by means of
u Hill engraving.machine. which works
on the principle Of pantograph, to
block of steel the size of the coin. Bat,
AS only the principal design. such as
the head, eagic, or shield, can be thus
the artist fills in by hand
the stars, date, and all surrounding
details. Then, after removing the
ground on the face of the block, he
strikes from the block an impression
into and upon a second block. This