Omaha daily bee., 1893-06-04
PROCESS OF MONEY MAKING
Visit to the San Francisco Mint, the Largest
in the World.
VAST SUMS OF YELLOW METAL IN STORE
Rare Collection or Old Coins and other
Valuable Reilcs-Rigid Economy Is
Practiced In the DiHerent
Departments.

onlteu states mlntS- located respectively at
Philadelphia, New Orleans, Carson City and
San Francisco. On the corner of Fifth and
Missouri streets stands large gray stone
building, sufficiently imposing as to attract
Immediate attention, and IL curiosity leads
the visitor up the long fight of broad stone
steps and into the reception hall no will find
himself within the walls of the largest mint
in the world. This mint was established in
1853, and the present building was erected in
1859. A polite, well informed and courteous
guide awaits to conduct the visitors through
the work rooms where can be seen the diff
ferent processes through which bullion must
pass before IL can be used as United States
money. The furnace room is the first one to
which the visitor is conducted The ma
chinery is run by water power, furnished by
an artesian well in tho yards of the mint
building.
The next room is the deposit room, or,
more properly speaking, the ingot room.
Here old gold, silver or jewel1y are received,
of which any one can deposit to the value of
not less than 800 and have it melted into
bullion, assayed and the next day receive in
money of full value in gold coin with 10 per
cent of copper alloy and no charges made for
the coming. On the day of our visit $500, 900
No one could or would explain. 1t looked
odd to see the apparently perfectly good So
cent pieces shoveled into the small, red hot
bowls, where the intense heat of the furnace
soon reduced the coins to molten fire,
which is stirred by small paddles held by i'm
mense iron pinchcrs in the hands of the
skilled workmen, who practically "earn
their bread by the sweat of the brow" The
small paddles, as well as the bowls in which
the metal is reduced to liquid, are made of
T1n and ,har NJ, a
silver are 12 inches long, IL inches wide and
Il inch thick. The value of the gold ingots
is 81 900 and the value of the silver ingots of
the same size is 30
The next process through which the metal
passes is that of rolling into long, thin strips
This is done by heavy rollers. under pres
sure of $50 tons. 1t takes thirteen times to
roll gold and seventeen times to roll silver.
The gold strips are now put into long copper
tubes. which are then placed in u furnace
until they are red hot, thence thrown into
vat of water, which process tempers the
metal. Each of these long copper tubes are
handled by two workmen and will hold
$50, 600 in gold. or s., 900 in silver. When the
gold strips are removed from the tubes the
gold is waxed and the silver strips are
creased. This is done to prevent abrasion.
The metal is now ready for cutting into
pieces, the size according to the denomina-
tion of the money to be made. The workmen
shove the long gold strips into the cutting
as it would pastboaru, and indeed it is quite
soft, as what is left of the strips is doubled
up by the HANDS of the workman and thrown
into a box to be sent back to the ingot room.
One dollar in silver and $50 in gold are cut
out at the rate of lS5 pieces per minute, the
smaller at the rate of 2S5 pieces per minute.
The round pieces of gold and silver are now
passed to the cleaning room, where they are
washed free from the wax and grease
Where Visitors Are Not Allowed.
Peeping into the door of the cleaning room,
which visitors are not allowed to enter.
could be seen q box of unstampcd 500 gold
pieces. The box contained 100000 in gold
The unstamped COINS, now bright and SHIN
merinR, are taken to the ad djuSJing ROOM
where the ladies work. They are here ad-
justed to the exact weight of the coin to be
made. Should coin prove to be too heavy
it is filed off; if too light it goes back to be
melted over. The milling process puts the
metal in blank form for stamping. ljut first
it must be freed from oxydizaton, which is
done by whitening. The round coins are now
ready for the stamping which makes the
metal money. There are five stamping ma
chimes, and the dies of these can be changed
One dollar in silver and $50 in gold are struck
off by the same machine at the rate of 5000
per hour. The capacity of the machines is
much larger than the supply of gold But if
all the machines could be kept working in
gold they could stamp S450,000 in one hour,
or S3 10000 in seven hours, or S945 000, 600 in
800 working days. To look at the large en-
gine OF 150-horSepowcr that controls the
machinery used in the mint building. one
would scarce imagine it had been used for
nineteen years, as 1t appears as bright and
glittering in its polished metal plates as if it
were new.
Forty Millions Within Reach.
In this great building, where s40,000,000 of
treasure is stored away, many seemingly
small economies are practiced, yet the re-
suits are quite astonishing ana more than
repay the labor The floors of the work
rooms are covered with perforated iron floor
lug in small sections. Every night these
sections are removed and the floor swept.
The sweepings are then worked over with
acid and the yield in gold and silver amounts
to $4,000 per annum. Once year every
truck aoout the building Is burned, irrespec-
tive of its condition, and also the clothing
worn in some of the work rooms, that not q
particle of the precious metals may be lost.
Once in four years the carpets in the ad-
justing rooms are burned. TheIast burning
| enriched the United States Golfers to the ex-
| tent of 1920.
Leaving the stamping room the visitor
| finds himself in long stone corridor facing
| two vaults, whose heavy iron doors conceal
| the treasures Of slO,000,0O0 and in their
| mighty strength OF steel and iron seem to
| mock as childish play the official papers
sealed with red wax and marking them as
belonging to the United States government.
Rare Collection OF Old Coins.
The guide now leads the way upstairs to
| the main hall, where the visitor can, if sc
| disposed, pass a pleasant and instructive
| halr hour viewing the collection of rare old
| coins on exhibition in the reception room.
| The most antique among the coins is a Jew
| ish shekel; diverse side, urn and Hebrew
| characters; reverse side, fig tree and Hebrew
| characters This coin is traced back to 100
| years b. @. The shekel is the common cur
| rency of that time. The size Is about that oi
| 50-cent piece. being worth that amount a.
| pure silver, but in its present shape very
| rare and almost priceless coin. Among the
| coins, which are too numerous to mention
| u pine tree shilling Is to be seen
| The coin is not clear cut and looks little like
our silver coias of today, but it recalls tc
| mind the we'll known story Of Captain Hull
| whom the United States government EN-
| ployed to make the pine tree shilling, giving
him one in every twenty. He soon grew
| wealthy, and when his favorite daughter
| was happily married he gave her for hel
| wedding dowery her weight in pine tree
| chillings, and she is said to have tipped the
scales at 225 pounds Two small COLDER
| spoons in the collection excite considerable
suriosity and speculation. They are said u
have been taken from Solomons temple