The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1890-05-15
HOME OF THE DOLLAR.
A Visit to the Philadelphia Mint Whsrs
Uncle Sans Money Is Coined.

amounts, VINO nave ever Deen III the
home of the almighty dollar-or rather
its place of birth. The Philadelphia
mint is known the world over, and
particularly in the United States, and
for obvious reasons this great institu-
ton stands very high in popular esti-
nation. The word mint is from the
Latin moneta. and means place for
making coins and metallic money, and
so in the Philadelphia mint only gold,
silver. nickel and copper coins are
made.
For nearly century a great part Oj
the money circulated in this country
has been made in this mint, and it is the
proud boast that during all that time
never a dollar has been stolen from the
mint, nor has person identified with
its management been under suspicion.
To all who. visit the City of Brotherly
Love, the mint on Chestnut street, neal
Broad, is place of interest, and as
nearly all the departments are open to
public inspection. fully $4,000 people
are annually shown the process OF
legalized money making. Guides, paid
by the Government, are at the mint tC
show visitors through the institution
between the hours of 10 o'clock and L
in the morning and and o'clock in
the afternoon. They are always courte.
Gus and attentive and explain the diff.
ferent processes of money-making, as
well as show the visitors coins in diff.
ferent stages of manufacture.
One entering the building and pass.
Ing down the hall sees at either end a
gatling gun, and the guide tells them
that $50 shots a minute could be fired
from each. They are stationed there
merely as precaution in case of a riot.
At the end of the hall the visitor Is
first shown to the deposit. or weighing
rooms, where all the gold and silver
for coming is received and weighed
On either side of tie hall, corded up
like wood, behind wire screens are
piles of gold bricks. each one weighing
about forty or fifty pounds. As one
passes into the weighing room he hard
" realizes that millions and millions OF
dollars worth of pure gold and silver
have been handled in the little room;
but such is the case.
The melting room is one of interest
and through the open doors one can
see the meters at work handling the
most precious of all metals. In this
room is melted all the gold and silver
used, after which it is placed in iron
molds to make the bars or bricks, and
is then taken to the deposit room where
the assayer takes off chip from each
bar to determine its value and fine.
ness. In the melting room all the coin
used is alleged and melted in crucibles.
The pots are heated white in furnaces,
and the castings after the alloy are
called ingots, which are strips of metal
twelve inches long half inch thick
and which vary in width from one to
two aud one-half inches. The floors OF
the casting or melting room are of
corrugated iron, to catch the particles
of metal. These are carefully swept
up and melted over. Each year the
value of the sweepings is estimated at
$25, 600.
The operation of rolling follows that
of casting, and is known in the mint
as breaking down" The process con-
ssts of passing the bars between pairs
of rollers with hardened steel surfaces
until reduced to the necessary thick.
ness for coming. To reduce the hard
ness from the great pressure the strips
have then to be annealed. The strips
after rolling are about six feet long
and are then cut into planchets OF
which each machine cuts 225 every
minute. The fillets are then sent to
the fryer who cuts a trial blank and
weighs it; if it varies from the standard
it is rejected and sent back to be re-
melted.
The coming and milling rooms are
places of the greatest interest and the
ones where the visitor loves to linger.
The presses for cutting the blanks are
arranged on one side of large room
and are fed by ladies. The tillets are
fed in, in strips, the punches descend
ing by pneumatic pressure. When the
planchets are fed to the milling ma
chimes over 500 a minute of the small
pieces. dimes or pennies, are milled
and about 100 dollars 4 minute. They
then pass to the stampers, all ladies'
who feed them into presses where they
receive the impression that makes them
perfect coins. As fast as one blank is
fed to the press q perfect coin drops
into box at the side of the press. So
accurate are the coins that only about
enc in 200 on examination has to be re-
jected as imperfect. After examina-
ton the coins are subjected to the pro-
cess of pixing, or weighing certain
number of coins, after which they are
counted and put into bags ready for
public use.
In all departments of this great
money mandatory there are employed
about 800 hands, 100 of which are
women. Every day they handle enough
money to make them rich, but to them
the valuable coins possess no seeming
monetary value, SO used are they to
handling it. Each department has its
head, its inspectors and watchmen, and
so perfect is the system that almost inn
mediate detection would follow the alb
straction of the smallest coin.
The visitor is last shown by the guide
to the second floor where is the cabinet
or collection department.
Here in cases can be found one of
each of the different pieces of money
coined at the mint. In this room is
also a most valuable collection of an
cient and foreign coins. Coins were
never dated until after the fifteenth
Soh1uis, anu consequently tue OiueSt
pieces of money eXtant can only be
determined by the devices upon them.
The use of coined money, however. can
be traced to the ninth century, B. c..
In one of the Cutler cases is coin sup
posed to date back five centuries be.
fore Christ. The collection of Roman
coins is large and so is the collection of
japanese money. Here are seen the
Chinese porcelain coins and japanese
gold oban. Turkish coins, upon which
are texts from the Koran. and Russian
coins are seen in the cases. The most
interesting coin to be seen in the col
lection is called the widows mite,
which is a small. black piece with an
unintelligible inscription. There are a
number of Roman bronze coins to be
seen that were made about the time the
Christian era was established one being
about the time of the Emperor Angus
tus. There is fine collection of Ger
man and British coins, and coins of all
other nations. Among the interesting