Visiting the Philadelphia Mint

For the last 25 years, I could have so many opportunities to visit the Philadelphia Mint, especially when I lived in Washington DC and it was just a short train ride away. For some reason, it just never happened, I always concentrated on other things during my travels. But I have to say, it was worth the wait, after all the mint and museum visits around the world, it was even more meaningful.

Back in the 90’s I used to live in Philadelphia, but at the time I was a teenager, and could hardly call myself a coin collector, and though I knew there was a mint in Philadelphia, it didn’t even occur to me that one could visit it. I had other more important things to do as a teenage kid.

But this summer, I attended a conference in Philadelphia, and I extended my trip on both ends so I could visit some museums, and the first one I started scheduling was the Philadelphia Mint. When I wrote to them, Tim Grant got in touch with me and organized my visit.

It was a lucky day. For the 250th anniversary, the Mint runs a monthly program where different teams from the Mint meet visitors in the public reading hall and answer questions. On this day it was the engravers, they were there for the day just to meet the tourists.

What they mostly explained to me was how the actual tools are made that create the coin. These days people can work from clay or on the computer, and it is equivalent, because ultimately the clay goes into plaster and they make an electronic format of it, from which they create the dies. Now it is an electronic laser engraving process that creates the final dies. From then on there is the master hub and the master die, and from those they make the working dies. A die for circulation coins can strike tens of thousands of coins before it has to be replaced; a higher-quality numismatic die lasts only about 200 strikes.

We also talked about education of people who want to work at the Mint. To get into the Mint, it really depends on experience and education — it is like a sliding bar: the more you have of one, the less you need of the other, but both are important, and it is definitely challenging to get in there. They are really enjoying their work. And I asked them if they can collect coins — yes, they can. It is not like the employees of most museums.

Then Tim took me through the museum. First we stopped by the first coin press which was constructed in 1792, which is exhibited there, you can touch it. As we were standing by it, he showed me a few objects. The first was the original key of the Mint from 1793. The second was a planchet of the first experimental penny. One side of it was totally smooth, and there was a little hole in it: originally the idea was that one penny would contain one cent’s worth of copper, but that would have been too big, so they decided to put a little piece of silver in the middle instead. That became problematic because it kept falling out. And actually, the one I was holding was supposedly done by Thomas Jefferson himself. So they ultimately decided to make the large cent without any silver.

A third piece he let me hold was a 1909 one-cent galvano that they are still using. I asked if they are still using those old artifacts, because the Mint has a very extensive archive — approximately 30,000 objects — and he said yes: when they made the new Peace dollars, they used the original die from the archive to recreate it. But obviously you cannot just recreate anything.

Before we went upstairs, we met Peter, the eagle, who was nesting in the Mint building in the 1830s. After Peter died, the taxidermist did his work, and he is still there for almost 200 years now, in very good shape behind glass. Apparently every eagle on United States coins since then is designed after Peter.

Upstairs we looked at the process of how money is made. Tim was showing the galvanos and the positives and the negatives, and how the hubs and the dies are created. Basically they had a piece of every single step of the process — the planchets and everything — mounted on the wall, and under every single one of them there was a braille sign explaining what it was. I don’t think it would be a self-guided tour, but once somebody sets you up at the very beginning, you could basically follow the mounted objects and read the braille under them. I would certainly not recommend it for a blind person to do it as a self-guided tour, but it is completely amazing if you can arrange for a guided tour.

The way it is shown is very interesting. You walk through the building, and left and right you can look down into the production facility. It is huge, a five-acre property with lots of machinery. So when you read about the roll that they cut the planchets from, the next big window is almost like a shopping window, and you look in and see the production facility doing just that. When you read about the planchets, you look out and see just that. When you read about the hubs and the dies and how the coin is pressed, you look out and see exactly that. He explained that when they started building this building in the 1960s, that is exactly what they had in mind: it is the world’s largest going production facility, but the building was designed around it, specifically targeting tourists so they can come and look at the production. At the end there is a smaller facility where you can see the numismatic coin production.

You could also see a bunch of medals posted on the wall — currently they have 300 different medals. For me that was interesting because I never really collected medals. I never considered it; I may have seen one or two at different museums. But it was interesting to see them, and actually I may have to think about it, because they are larger, so it is a much better tactile experience.

This is not a very large museum, but a very, very educational one, and it really takes you through everything step by step.

Downstairs there were a few small exhibits behind glass: some valuable coins, and the aluminum penny. The last ten minutes I spent at the bookstore, where there wasn’t too much for my spending power these days — the silver set for this year would have cost $240. Since I wouldn’t open it, I didn’t want to buy it. So I just got a book, and got change for a five Dollar bill, and went outside the store.

There is a coin machine: you put in a dollar, and you get four quarters, which were the most recent Constitution quarters. After two dollars the machine was empty. All right, eight quarters is more than enough for me, I said, and as I was walking away I could hear that they were refilling the machine with freshly minted coins. So the coins are not just filled, they are coming from right from the Mint.

One more thing. Tim explained that he has been working there for 41 years, and basically he knew everything and everybody. It was amazing to walk with him and hear his story, and know that he is a big part of it.

It was a very special trip, a special moment, and I honestly feel it is so good that I did not decide to go 20 years ago. I have been to so many museums and mints, and seen so many things, but this is truly meaningful: understanding how my country’s coins are minted. Whatever is happening in politics, you can see that in the Mint there is real America, and there is a continuation of what it is, and what is real. It was just fascinating to understand how coin production and history tie together, and I don’t think I would have felt the weight and the value of it if I had gone there as a kid or as a youngster. I got so much more out of it today.