Q. David Bowers
Business Strikes:
Enabling legislation: Act of January 18, 1837 Designer of obverse: Robert Ball Hughes (after Gobrecht)
Designer of reverse: Robert Ball Hughes (after Reich)
Weight and composition: 412.5 grains; .900 silver, .100 copper
Melt-down (silver value) in year minted: $1.039 Dies prepared:
Obverse: Unknown; Reverse: Unknown
Business strike mintage: 26,000; Delivery figures by day: May 4: 9,000; May 10: 3,000; May 15: 4,000; June 25: 10,000.
Estimated quantity melted: Unknown
Approximate population MS-65 or better: 0 or 1 (URS-O)
Business Strikes:
Enabling legislation: Act of January 18, 1837 Designer of obverse: Robert Ball Hughes (after Gobrecht)
Designer of reverse: Robert Ball Hughes (after Reich)
Weight and composition: 412.5 grains; .900 silver, .100 copper
Melt-down (silver value) in year minted: $1.039 Dies prepared: Obverse: Unknown; Reverse: Unknown
Business strike mintage: 26,000; Delivery figures by day: May 4: 9,000; May 10: 3,000; May 15: 4,000; June 25: 10,000.
Estimated quantity melted: Unknown
Approximate population MS-65 or better: 0 or 1 (URS-O)
Peale on Die Making
The following report is from the Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, January-April 1855, pp. 95-100, and contains a description by Franklin Peale on the subject of die making. Peale worked at the Mint from 1839 until he was discharged in 1854 for using Mint facilities for his private profit. More than any other individual at the Mint during his time, he devised many innovations in the fields of die making and coinage. (Also see "A Visit to the Mint in 1861," under Additional Information, 1861, below.) Peale's 1855 report follows:
"Mr. Peale made a communication on the subject of coinage, embracing a variety of facts and observations, particularly in relation to the processes of preparing and reproducing dies for monetary and medallic purposes; and, in connection therewith, exhibited electrotype and other copies of coins and medals.
"He said, that the observations he was about to offer to the attention of the Society were selected from his notes, upon numismatic operations, and were the result of many years of experience, whilst an officer of the government, in the department to which they refer.
"He further observed, that the enthusiasm which had always been an impelling principle whilst endeavoring to fulfill his duties, might have made him overvalue the matter, and that in now asking the attention of the Society, he was committing a similar error; in which case he could ask the indulgence due, and so often granted, under like circumstances.
"It cannot be doubted, that the coinage of the country, of high rank in the scale of nations, should bear evidence on its face, in the first place, of the condition and progress both of the fine, and mechanic arts, within its borders; and to insure, in the second place, the greatest degree of security against fraudulent imitations, or counterfeiting, which desirable object can best be secured by the employment of the highest grade of artistic talent in the design of the device, and its execution throughout, to the finished coin as issued from the mint.
"A brief notice of die-sinking, and the reproduction of dies for coinage, will be appropriate before proceeding further with the subject.
"In the advance of the mechanic arts, in modern times, great facilities have been devised therein. The arts of medal engraving and die-sinking have largely participated; rapid and exact mechanical means now take the place of the laborious and imperfect ones which formerly embarrassed this important art. I will endeavor to exemplify them as briefly as possible.
"The artist or designer models in a plastic material, such as wax or clay, a medallion portrait, or other device in relief, of sufficient size to permit freedom of handling, and facile study of effect; from this model a cast can be taken in plaster of Paris, or it may be electrotyped in copper. From the mold thus obtained, copies can be cast in hard metal, bronze or iron, which may be. further retouched or finished; at the will of the artist.
"The model, prepared as above, is placed in the portrait lathe, of which we arc indebted to the French. By means of mandrels, revolving in equal periods of time, upon one of which the model is placed, and on the other the material for the copy or reduction, in front of which mandrels a bar is made to traverse, carrying a tracer, which passes over the face of the model, touching, in succession, every part of the model in a spiral line from centre to circumference, or vice versa, a tool on the same bar, opposite the mandrel bearing the material, necessarily obeys the same motions, and is thus made to cut a facsimile of the model, the construction of the whole being such as to admit of any proportionate relation in size. By means of this lathe, rapid and exact reductions are made in steel, with an infinitely decreased amount of labor, and having the great advantage as far as coining purposes are concerned, of retaining faithful proportionate relations in the different denominations of pieces bearing the same device. The lettering of legends is usually put in at this stage of proceeding by hand, as well as minor and detached parts.