VAMWorld 2.0

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.

Several new files have been uploaded to NNP. These include entire volumes and file boxes each containing several hundred to over 1,000 pages. These include Letters Received by HQ during the last week of December 1899 and first 2 weeks of January 1900, (E-229 Box 106, 107.) and the same period for 19...

Well....the next books will come with a special "Time Dilation" chip. This will expand your reading time without subtracting from the rest of your day.

It's still experimental.

Much better reads are: Guide Book to Peace Dollars (Whitman Publishing LLC) and Renaissance of American Coinage 1916-1921 (Seneca Mill Press LLC)....but they will take longer.

New Orleans standard silver dollar output for the first month suggests that one press was in operation on this denomination. If we assume the souvenir engraved coin was from Feb 27, then it is very likely to be from die pair #1. Without a table of die life (see 1900-S and 1881-S tables) we can't tel...

Not sure if collectors have this New Orleans Mint information, so I'm posting a photo here.

Pay special attention to the upper surfaces of inscriptions, the detail and roundness of rays, and so forth on both sides. We are so accustomed to seeing multiple "flat" areas that we have nothing for comparison. That's the purpose of posting the photo.

Most of these files were tossed into file boxes and forgotten. Their companions are dried out rubber bands, rusted metal clips, straight pins, brass page fasteners and the occasional centenarian comatose insect critter. No alien life forms have been seen - yet. But, some of the handwriting looks mor...

The 1900-S Life of Dies table is a good start. We know that these dies were shipped in small lots (such as #1-5, etc.) and it would make sense from an operational perspective to list them on the table in order of use. As can be readily seen, there are probably many more die pairings than numeric "pa...

An interesting letter concerning the first silver dollar to leave the New Orleans Mint in 1879.