VAMWorld 2.0

CCris - We have no way of knowing. However, with about 1.2 million coins transferred per day, plus repackaging of millions of coins in 1899, the likelihood of substantial mixing was great. In the new building, silver dollars were stacked in large piles - some as tall as 12-feet. The new mint vaults ...

Still -- it's an excellent example !

The fact that 12,000 silver dollars were struck at the Philadelphia Mint on June 28, 1895 is well documented and beyond any reasonable dispute. But since then, not one circulation-quality coin has been discovered. All 1895-P dollars examined by experts, authentication companies and others have been ...

Correct mintage, with lots of supporting documentation, was published in Coin World, 2006. The extended title is: "- RESEARCH UPDATE - KING OF MORGAN DOLLARS REVISITED by Roger W. Burdette Copyright 2006, 2018 by Roger W. Burdette. All rights reserved. Additional research sheds light on production o...

Great subject! Here are recent photos of my old office (upper photo) and my new one in the building on K Street, NW. In the old office photo, the fellow at the desk is Elbert Quigley. He’s the person responsible for adding those little tracking numbers to documents from the archives. The men to his ...

Hmmmm....Was one of the people paid to add mintmarks to each silver dollar having a bad day....?


Alright -- It's only Jan. 2.

messydesk wrote: ↑

Wed Jan 01, 2020 2:06 am

I believe cat owners would have an interesting perspective on when a scratch becomes a gouge.

...and when they become former cat owners.

The original Secret Service documents will be found in RG87 Entry 29 in NARA, College Park, Md. A more accurate story can be obtained by combining newspaper articles with the Agent's Reports.

RogerRock - This is part of the reason for a From Mine to Mint-2 is in the works. The US Mints have never collected or maintained the kinds of detailed information on operations and equipment that modern collectors can use to understand and explain the appearance of coins. Even today, they do not ke...

Context: The NO Mint had been struggling with cracking dollar dies for several years. They usually blamed the Engraving Department. The real cause was poor planchet annealing due to attempting to process more planchets than the annealing furnace could handle. That, in turn, was because Mint HQ was d...

This letter is in response to a suggestion from the New Orleans Mint to reverse the position of dollar dies in their toggle presses. By inference, it shows that in 1900 the obverse die was in the upper position.

We can only turn over the stones we have. Others will remain lost or unknown. As for the Carson Mint press #1 - the number has no meaning. The museum has an old, extensively modified toggle press with a number on it. It is NOT identical to the one used at the Carson Mint: the machinery has been modi...

I use 0.2 mm or wider for a gouge; anything less = scratch unless there's a pattern of die damage. (See 1922-S double eagle variety with filed obverse die.)

This one is kinda nice....801 17th Street, N.W, leased to Drexel University, among others.

As for Carson's handling of dies and efficiency in use, it varied with the attention and knowledge of Mint personnel. The letter below is typical of complaints in the latter years of coinage operation.

The US Mint Engraving Department kept meticulous die records. Calendar year closeout and annual settlement at the end of the FY were definitive accounting processes. That used dies did not have to be sent back to Philadelphia in every year, or that some were buried near the Carson Mint does not mean...

RE: "Carson City was officially closed in June of 1899. They stopped producing coins in 93, but didn't lose the official designation until 99. Makes sense they had a few CC reverses laying around in the interim in case the mint was needed for production." Once the Carson Mint was decommissioned in 1...

If die records for the Engraving Department existed, it might be possible to match left-over CC dies to those sent to New Orleans - every die was tracked even when it was renumbered. But those records seem to be missing. We have to work with what is available, and do what is possible to gradually in...

Rapid cracking of silver dollars dies had been a problem at the New Orleans Mint for several years. This letter, from January 1900, led to temporary assignment of Albert W. Downing from Philadelphia. Downing, Foreman of the Philadelphia Mint Coining Room and an experienced machinist, was given the t...

NNP offers silver dollar variety collectors the opportunity to examine original documents, including many quoted in hobby books. Also, files never before examined will be posted; and these can contain information that opens new ideas on various coins and events leading to their production.