The daily morning journal and courier., 1897-11-05

to go out. If somebody should corner the penny market people would realize what a highly important coin it is, for the reason that there is no substitute for it."
 There are several unique features about the coinage of pennies, and the work is managed in a somewhat diff ferent fashion from the turning out of gold and silver coins.
 In the first place, although the United States government is the only authori-
 ty entitled to indulge in the manufac- ture of coins, our Uncle Samuel does not prepare the blanks from which pen uies are made. He finds it cheaper to let out the work by contract than to do it himself, and 1t is at present in the hands of a Cincinnati firm They pre- pare the copper blanks in sheets large enough to turn out one hundred pieces each. It is not known exactly how much the government pays for these
 blanks, but the price is in the vicinity of dollar and a quarter per one thou
 sand, or trifie over one mill for each
 unstamped cent.
 In the disparity between the real and
 face value of the cent there is consid-
 erable profit for the government, for
 the reason that great proportion of
 the pennies coined will never be pre-
 sented for final redemption. An enor-
 nous number of cents are lost in one
 way or another every year. They
 work their way into the sewers or the ground, children place them on railway
 tracks to be hattened out or otherwise
 mutilated so that they will not pass
 current One hundred thousand per
 year is small estimate of the loss in
 this way. Another source of profit for
 the government Is in the recoinage of
 old pieces, which were all larger and
 intrinsically more valuable than those now in use. In the three years 1S94-' '96 the gain from recoining old copper cents. three-cent and two-cent pieces into current pennies and nickels was $S7, ,553.39.
 When the copper sheets ready for stamping reach the Philadelphia mint where all our minor coins are made | each one is tested to see that the alloy is in the right proportion. Thence they
 pass directly to the coining room.
 Here the sheets are cut into strips, from which the round blanks, called
 ''planchets," are first punched, and
 these are run directly through >the
 stamping machines, where they receive the impressions from the dies. The stamping machine consists of a heavy cast-iron arch above a small round table, at which the operator sits,
 A nearly round brass plate, called a triangle" is fastened by a Knee" joint to the lever of the arch. This triangle holds the die, which is forced down on the blanks and leaves the im-
 pression. The brass blanks or plan chets" drop through a hollow tube upon
 feeders. which carry them beneath the dies. Any imperfect pieces are rejected
 by the woman operators, who acquire wonderful dexterHy in detecting them. From the stamp, the coins go to aal | automatic weighing machine. This in telligent piece of mechanism, German invention, perfected by former direct
 or of the mint, throws out all pieces | that are above or below the required weight, and an electric alarm attached to it warns the operator in case two | coins try to pass into the receptacle at
 once. The pieces of correct weight pass 1 on to the counting-room, and the others are sent back to be recast.
 | Peruies are not counted by the 1abo- | rious process of handling each piece, but by a device known as the counting | board" by which five hundred are counted at a time. The counting board is an inclined plane, with columns the exact width of a cent, separated by copper partitions in height exactly equal to the thickness of the coin.
 The cents are spread over this board
 and fall into the grooves prepared for
 them. all surplus coins falling off into a trough, Then the counting board is emptied into the canvas bags, which
 are carted away to be shipped to any
 part of the country.
 The figures of the distribution kept
 by the mint are interesting, as showing the localities where pennies are most isl use. Last year the demand for pennies was greatest from Pennsylvania, which took over eleven millions of them. New York was the second largest customer, adding nine millions to her supply. In l New Mexico, on the other hand, the cent is still unappreciated and little
 used. and in 1896 only four thousand pieces-forty dollars-were sent to this territory y.-Washingtoa Star.
 Miss Ada Shelton of Derby, an aunt
 of E. Shelton Cornell of this city, has