1.
Mint (facility)
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A mint is an industrial facility which manufactures coins that can be used in currency. The history of mints correlates closely with the history of coins, in the beginning, hammered coinage or cast coinage were the chief means of coin minting, with resulting production runs numbering as little as the hundreds or thousands. In modern mints, coin dies are manufactured in large numbers, with the mass production of currency, the production cost is weighed when minting coins. For example, it costs the United States Mint much less than 25 cents to make a quarter, metals were well suited to represent wealth, owing to their great intrinsic value and their durability, divisibility and rarity. The first mint was established in Lydia in the 7th century BC, for coining gold, silver. The Lydian innovation of manufacturing coins under the authority of the spread to neighboring Greece. Some of the earliest Greek mints were within city-states on Greek islands such as Crete, at about the same time, coins and mints appeared independently in China and spread to Korea and Japan. The manufacture of coins in the Roman Empire, dating from about the 4th century BC, the origin of the word mint is ascribed to the manufacture of silver coin at Rome in 269 BC at the temple of Juno Moneta. This goddess became the personification of money, and her name was applied both to money and to its place of manufacture, Roman mints were spread widely across the Empire, and were sometimes used for propaganda purposes. The populace often learned of a new Roman Emperor when coins appeared with the new Emperors portrait, Ancient coins were made by casting in moulds or by striking between engraved dies. The Romans cast their larger copper coins in clay moulds carrying distinctive markings, not because they knew nothing of striking, casting is now used only by counterfeiters. The most ancient coins were cast in bulletshaped or conical moulds, the blank or unmarked piece of metal was placed on a small anvil, and the die was held in position with tongs. The reverse or lower side of the received a rectangular mark made by the sharp edges of the little anvil. Subsequently the anvil was marked in ways, and decorated with letters and figures of beasts. The spherical blanks soon gave place to lenticular-shaped ones, the blank was made red-hot and struck between cold dies. One blow was usually insufficient, and the method was similar to that used in striking medals in high relief. With the substitution of iron for bronze as the material for dies, about 300 AD, in the Middle Ages bars of metal were cast and hammered out on an anvil. Portions of the sheets were then cut out with shears
2.
Philadelphia Mint
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The Philadelphia Mint was created from the need to establish a national identity and the needs of commerce in the United States. This led the Founding Fathers of the United States to make an establishment of a national mint. The Coinage Act of 1792 was entered into law on April 2 and it proclaimed the creation of the United States Mint. Philadelphia at that time was the capital, therefore the first mint facility was built there. David Rittenhouse, an American scientist, was appointed the first director of the mint by President George Washington, two lots were purchased by Rittenhouse on July 18,1792, at Seventh Street and 631 Filbert Street in Philadelphia for $4,266.67. The next day, demolition of a whiskey distillery on the property began. Foundation work began on July 31, and by September 7, the smelt house was the first public building erected by the United States government. A three-story brick structure facing Seventh Street was constructed a few months later, measuring nearly 37 ft wide on the street, it only extended back 33 ft. The gold and silver for the mint were contained in basement vaults, the first floor housed deposit and weighing rooms, along with the press room, where striking coins took place. Mint official offices were on the floor, and the assay office was located on the third floor. A photograph of the Seventh Street building taken around 1908 show that by then the year 1792, between the smelt house and the building on Seventh Street, a mill house was built. Horses in the basement turned a mill located on the first floor. In January 1816, the smelt and mill houses were destroyed by a fire, the smelt house was never repaired and all smelting was done elsewhere. The mill house, which was destroyed, was soon replaced with a large brick building. It included a new engine in the basement to power the machinery. Until 1833, these three buildings provided the United States with hard currency, operations moved to the second Philadelphia mint in 1833, and the land housing the first mint was sold. In the late 19th or early 20th century, the property was sold to Frank Stewart, with no governmental help, the first mint was demolished between 1907 and 1911. Now, only a plaque remains to memorialize the spot
3.
New Orleans Mint
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The New Orleans Mint operated in New Orleans, Louisiana, as a branch mint of the United States Mint from 1838 to 1861 and from 1879 to 1909. During its years of operation, it produced over 427 million gold and silver coins of nearly every American denomination and it was closed during most of the American Civil War and Reconstruction. After it was decommissioned as a mint, the building has served a variety of purposes, including as an office, a United States Coast Guard storage facility. Since 1981 it has served as a branch of the Louisiana State Museum, damaged by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, after over two years of repairs and renovations, the museum reopened in October 2007. As of April 2015, the museums exhibits include instruments used by some of New Orleans notable jazz musicians, photographs, and posters. The site is also a venue for jazz concerts, in partnership with the New Orleans Jazz National Historical Park. The Louisiana Historical Center is located on the floor of the building. The center includes collections of manuscripts and maps, and primary and secondary source materials in a wide range of media. It is open to anyone with an interest in Louisiana history, the New Orleans Mint has been designated a National Historic Landmark, and it is the oldest extant structure to have served as a U. S. Mint. Along with the Charlotte Mint, it is one of two former mint facilities in the U. S. to house an art gallery, the rapidly growing United States in the early 1830s experienced a shortage of coins. It is estimated that in 1830 there was one small silver coin per person, also, production of silver dollars was suspended in 1804 because they were being exchanged for underweight Spanish coins in the West Indies. That left the half-dollar as the largest denomination of circulating coin being minted in the U. S, foreign coins were being circulated in the U. S. to alleviate the shortage. The Philadelphia Mint had been the only U. S. mint until 1838, in 1836 Jackson had issued an executive order called the Specie Circular which demanded that all land transactions in the United States be conducted in cash. Both of these actions, combined with the depression following the Panic of 1837 increased the domestic need for minted money. As a result, in 1835 the U. S. Federal Government established three branch mints, the Charlotte Mint in North Carolina, the Dahlonega Mint in Georgia, Dahlonega and Charlotte were in gold mining regions and these mints produced only gold coins. Large quantities of gold from Mexico also passed through its port annually, in the early 19th century, New Orleans, which was the fifth-largest city in the United States until the Civil War, conducted more foreign trade than any other city in the nation. It was also located relatively near to gold deposits discovered in Alabama. The Mints location occupies a prominent place in civic history and it sits at one of the two River corners of the French Quarter, which had been the entire city, or Vieux Carré, of New Orleans
4.
Coin
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A coin is a small, flat, round piece of metal or plastic used primarily as a medium of exchange or legal tender. They are standardized in weight, and produced in quantities at a mint in order to facilitate trade. They are most often issued by a government, Coins are usually metal or alloy, or sometimes made of synthetic materials. Coins made of metal are stored in large quantities as bullion coins. Other coins are used as money in transactions, circulating alongside banknotes. Usually the highest value coin in circulation is less than the lowest-value note. In the last hundred years, the value of circulation coins has occasionally been lower than the value of the metal they contain. Exceptions to the rule of face value being higher than content value also occur for some bullion coins made of copper, silver, or gold, while the Eagle, Maple Leaf, and Sovereign coins have nominal face values, the Krugerrand does not. The first coins were developed independently in Iron Age Anatolia and Archaic Greece, India, Coins spread rapidly in the 6th and 5th centuries BCE, throughout Greece and Persia, and further to the Balkans. Standardized Roman currency was used throughout the Roman Empire, important Roman gold and silver coins were continued into the Middle Ages. Fiat money first arose in medieval China, with the paper money. Early paper money was introduced in Europe in the later Middle Ages, the penny was minted as a silver coin until the 17th century. The first circulating United States coins were cents, produced in 1793, Coins were an evolution of currency systems of the Late Bronze Age, where standard-sized ingots, and tokens such as knife money, were used to store and transfer value. In the late Chinese Bronze Age, standardized cast tokens were made and these were replicas in bronze of earlier Chinese currency, cowrie shells, so they were named Bronze Shell. According to Aristotle and Pollux, the first issuer of coins was Hermodike of Kyme The earliest coins are associated with Iron Age Anatolia. Early electrum coins were not standardized in weight, and in their earliest stage may have been ritual objects, such as badges or medals, issued by priests. The first Lydian coins were made of electrum, a naturally occurring alloy of silver, most of the early Lydian coins include no writing, only an image of a symbolic animal. Anatolian Artemis was the Πὀτνια Θηρῶν, whose symbol was the stag, a small percentage of early Lydian/Greek coins have a legend
5.
Eagle (heraldry)
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The eagle is used in heraldry as a charge, as a supporter, and as a crest. The eagle with its keen eyes symbolized perspicacity, courage, strength and immortality, with these attributed qualities the eagle became a symbol of power and strength in Ancient Rome. The eagle as a symbol has a much longer than that of heraldry itself. In Ancient Egypt, the falcon was the symbol of Horus, an eagle appears on the battle standard of Cyrus the Great in Persia, around 540 BC. The eagle as an animal of the Roman Republic was introduced in 102 BC by consul Gaius Marius. According to Islamic tradition, the Black Standard of Muhammad was known as راية العُقاب rāyat al-uqāb banner of the eagle), in Christian symbolism the four living creatures of scripture have traditionally been associated with the Four Evangelists. The eagle is the symbol of Saint John the Evangelist, in medieval and modern heraldry eagles are often said to indicate that the armiger was courageous, a man of action and judicious. Where an eagles wings were spread it was said to indicate the role as a protector. In the same way that a lion is considered the king of beasts and it has been more widely used and more highly regarded in Continental European heraldry than in English heraldry. For instance, in the roll of Henry III of England there are only three eagles, media related to examples of heraldic eagles at Wikimedia Commons The depiction of the heraldic eagle is subject to a great range of variation in style. The eagle was far more common in continental European—particularly German—than English heraldry and it is often depicted membered / armed and langued gules, that is, with red claws / talons and tongue. In its relatively few instances in Gallo-British heraldry, the outermost feathers are typically longer, an eagle can appear either single- or double-headed. On at least one occasion a three-headed eagle is seen, recursant describes an eagle with his head turned to the sinister. In full aspect describes an eagle with his head facing the onlooker, in trian aspect describes when the eagles head is facing at a three-quarter view to give the appearance of depth – with the head cocked at an angle somewhere between profile and straight-on. Overture or close is when the wings are shown at the sides and close to the body, addorsed is when the eagle is shown statant and ready to fly, with the wings shown open behind the eagle so that they almost touch. Espanie or épandre is when the eagle is shown affronté and the wings are shown with the tips upward, abaisé is when the eagle is shown affronté and the wings are shown with the tips downward. A good example is the eagle on the side of the US quarter dollar coin. Klee-Stengeln are the pair of long-stemmed trefoil-type charges on the wings of 13th-century German depictions of the heraldic eagle and they represent the upper edge of the wings and are normally Or, like the beak and claws
6.
Indian Head gold pieces
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The quarter eagle was struck from 1908 to 1915 and from 1925–1929. The half eagle was struck from 1908 to 1916, and in 1929, the pieces remain the only US circulating coins with recessed designs. These coins were the last of their denominations to be struck for circulation, before his death in August 1907, Saint-Gaudens completed designs for the eagle and double eagle, although both required subsequent work to make them fully suitable for coining. The Mint had difficulty fitting the required inscriptions on the gold coins. Such coins were designed by Boston sculptor Bela Lyon Pratt at the request of the Presidents friend, after some difficulty, the Mint was successful in this work, though Pratt was unhappy at modifications made by the Mints engravers, headed by longtime Chief Engraver Charles E. Barber. The two pieces were struck until World War I caused gold to vanish from circulation, and then again in the late 1920s, neither coin circulated much, the quarter eagle saw popularity as a Christmas present. In 1933, President Franklin Roosevelt stopped the issuance of gold in coin form, at Roosevelts instigation, Shaw had the Mint hire Saint-Gaudens to redesign five denominations of US coinage that could be changed without an Act of Congress, the cent and the four gold pieces. By the Mint Act of 1792, an eagle was made equivalent to ten dollars, Mint officials originally assumed that whatever design was selected for the double eagle would simply be scaled down for the three lower denominations. In May 1907, however, President Roosevelt decided that the eagle and double eagle would bear different designs, after considerable difficulties, the Mint issued the eagle and double eagle based on Saint-Gaudens designs later that year. Due to the difficulties with the two coins, little attention was given to the half eagle and quarter eagle until late 1907. On November 28,1907, Treasury Secretary George Cortelyou wrote in a letter that the eagle design was to be used for the two small gold pieces. On December 2, Mint Director Frank Leach instructed the Philadelphia Mint to prepare coinage dies for the small pieces, using the double eagle design. Chief Engraver Charles E. Barber replied a week later that it would be difficult to put all the legends that were required by law on the new pieces, such as the name of the country. On the double eagle, E Pluribus Unum is placed on the edge, Barber was assigned the task of solving these difficulties. He planned to use his version of Saint-Gaudens double eagle design. Leach wrote to Saint-Gaudens attorney to ask if the sculptors assistant Henry Hering could do the work, Hering was willing, and asked for enlarged models of the double eagle designs. On January 3,1908, Leach wrote to Hering to inform him that all work would be done by the Mint. The Presidents friend, Dr. William Sturgis Bigelow, had been in Japan for most of 1907, Bigelow was one of a number of Roosevelts friends given early specimens of the double eagle
7.
Half eagle
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The Half Eagle is a United States coin that was produced for circulation from 1795 to 1929 and in commemorative and bullion coins since the 1980s. Composed almost entirely of gold, it has a value of five dollars. Its production was authorized by The Act of April 2,1792, the design and composition of the half eagle changed many times over the years, but it was originally designed by Robert Scot. At this time the coin contained.9167 gold and.0833 copper and silver and it had a diameter of approximately 25 mm, a weight of 8.75 grams, and a reeded edge. The obverse design, or Turban Head, depicted a portrait of Liberty facing to the right. The reverse depicted a small eagle and this type was produced from 1795 to 1798. Simultaneously, another type was minted that depicted a larger heraldic eagle on the reverse with the inscription E PLURIBUS UNUM and this type was produced through 1807. From 1807 to 1812, a new designed by John Reich was produced, the Draped Bust, featuring a round-capped Liberty facing left on the obverse. For the first time, the value 5 D. was placed on the reverse of the coin to indicate its value, in 1813 a modified version of the Draped Bust was introduced, removing much of the bustline and giving Liberty an overall larger appearance. This design which would last through 1834, another modification occurred in 1829 when the diameter of the coin was reduced slightly to 23.8 mm, although the overall design remained unchanged. By 1834, the gold in the eagle had been worth more than its face value for several years. The Act of June 28,1834 called for a reduction in the gold used. The weight of the coin was reduced to 8.36 grams, the reduced to 22.5 mm. A new obverse, the Classic Head, was created by William Kneass for the altered coin, the reverse still depicted the modified eagle introduced in 1813, but E PLURIBUS UNUM was removed to distinguish further the new composition. In 1837, the content of this type was increased to.900 in accordance with the Act of January 18,1837. In 1839 the coin was redesigned again, the new obverse was designed by Christian Gobrecht and is known as the Liberty Head or Coronet head. The reverse design remained largely the same, although the value was changed from 5 D. to Five D, for those struck at the Philidephia Mint, there was no longer any silver in the coin, its composition was now.900 gold and.100 copper. However, gold ore used at the branch mints of Charlotte and Dahlonega had a high natural silver content
8.
Early United States commemorative coins
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The early United States commemorative coins traditionally begins with the 1892 Columbian Half dollar and extends through the 1954 Booker T. Washington issue. The profits from the sale of coins was often used to fund a specific project. Commemorative coins were a money raising mechanism that provided an alternative to raising taxes, Washington Memorial 194619471948194919501951 George Washington Carver/Booker T
9.
San Francisco
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San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the cultural, commercial, and financial center of Northern California. It is the birthplace of the United Nations, the California Gold Rush of 1849 brought rapid growth, making it the largest city on the West Coast at the time. San Francisco became a consolidated city-county in 1856, after three-quarters of the city was destroyed by the 1906 earthquake and fire, San Francisco was quickly rebuilt, hosting the Panama-Pacific International Exposition nine years later. In World War II, San Francisco was a port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater. Politically, the city votes strongly along liberal Democratic Party lines, San Francisco is also the headquarters of five major banking institutions and various other companies such as Levi Strauss & Co. Dolby, Airbnb, Weebly, Pacific Gas and Electric Company, Yelp, Pinterest, Twitter, Uber, Lyft, Mozilla, Wikimedia Foundation, as of 2016, San Francisco is ranked high on world liveability rankings. The earliest archaeological evidence of habitation of the territory of the city of San Francisco dates to 3000 BC. Upon independence from Spain in 1821, the became part of Mexico. Under Mexican rule, the system gradually ended, and its lands became privatized. In 1835, Englishman William Richardson erected the first independent homestead, together with Alcalde Francisco de Haro, he laid out a street plan for the expanded settlement, and the town, named Yerba Buena, began to attract American settlers. Commodore John D. Sloat claimed California for the United States on July 7,1846, during the Mexican–American War, montgomery arrived to claim Yerba Buena two days later. Yerba Buena was renamed San Francisco on January 30 of the next year, despite its attractive location as a port and naval base, San Francisco was still a small settlement with inhospitable geography. The California Gold Rush brought a flood of treasure seekers, with their sourdough bread in tow, prospectors accumulated in San Francisco over rival Benicia, raising the population from 1,000 in 1848 to 25,000 by December 1849. The promise of fabulous riches was so strong that crews on arriving vessels deserted and rushed off to the gold fields, leaving behind a forest of masts in San Francisco harbor. Some of these approximately 500 abandoned ships were used at times as storeships, saloons and hotels, many were left to rot, by 1851 the harbor was extended out into the bay by wharves while buildings were erected on piles among the ships. By 1870 Yerba Buena Cove had been filled to create new land, buried ships are occasionally exposed when foundations are dug for new buildings. California was quickly granted statehood in 1850 and the U. S. military built Fort Point at the Golden Gate, silver discoveries, including the Comstock Lode in Nevada in 1859, further drove rapid population growth. With hordes of fortune seekers streaming through the city, lawlessness was common, and the Barbary Coast section of town gained notoriety as a haven for criminals, prostitution, entrepreneurs sought to capitalize on the wealth generated by the Gold Rush
10.
Hippocampus (mythology)
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It was also adopted into Etruscan mythology. The hippocampus has typically been depicted as having the body of a horse with the lower body of a fish. Coins minted at Tyre around the 4th century BC show the patron god Melqart riding on a winged hippocampus, coins of the same period from Byblos show a hippocampus diving under a galley. A gold sea-horse was discovered in a horde from the kingdom of Lydia in Asia minor and this compares to the specifically two-hoofed hippocampi of Gaius Valerius Flaccus in his Argonautica, Orion when grasping his father’s reins heaves the sea with the snorting of his two-hooved horses. In Hellenistic and Roman imagery, however, Poseidon often drives a sea-chariot drawn by hippocampi. Thus hippocampi sport with this god in ancient depictions and much more modern ones, such as in the waters of the 18th-century Trevi Fountain in Rome surveyed by Neptune from his niche above. The appearance of hippocampi in both freshwater and saltwater is counter-intuitive to an audience, though not to an ancient one. Thus it was natural for a temple at Helike in the plain of Achaea to be dedicated to Poseidon Helikonios. When an earthquake suddenly submerged the city, the temples bronze Poseidon accompanied by hippocampi continued to snag fishermens nets, likewise, the hippocampus was considered an appropriate decoration for mosaics in Roman thermae or public baths, as at Aquae Sulis modern day Bath in Britannia. In the fore-temple are images, two of Poseidon, a third of Amphitrite, and a Sea, which also is of bronze, on the car stand Amphitrite and Poseidon, and there is the boy Palaemon upright upon a dolphin. These too are made of ivory and gold, on the middle of the base on which the car has been wrought a Sea holding up the young Aphrodite, and on either side are the nymphs called Nereids. Katharine Shepard found in the theme an Etruscan belief in a sea-voyage to the other world, the sea-horse also appears in Pictish stone carvings in Scotland. The symbolism of the carving is unknown, although similar but not identical to Roman sea-horse images, it is unclear whether this depiction originates from images brought over by the Romans, or had a place in earlier Pictish mythology. The mythic hippocampus has been used as a charge, particularly since the Renaissance, most often in the armorial bearings of people. However, in a blazon, the terms hippocamp and hippocampus now refer to the animal called a seahorse. The above-mentioned fish hybrids are less frequently. The sea-horse is also an image in Renaissance and post-renaissance art, for example, in the Trevi fountain. A winged hippocampus has been used as a symbol for Air France since its establishment in 1933, bronze hippocampoi appear in Dublin, Ireland on lampposts next to a statue of Henry Grattan and on Grattan Bridge
11.
Sesquicentennial Exposition
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The honor of hosting this celebration was awarded to Philadelphia in 1921. Initial grand plans were scaled down tremendously by the time the fair opened, the original director of the exposition, Colonel David C. Collier, resigned in protest over these budget cuts, baker, retired due to illness days before the festival opened, leaving things in the hands of E. L. Austin. Baker died less than two weeks later, the fair opened on May 31,1926, and ran through November on grounds bounded by 10th Street, Packer Avenue, 23rd Street, and the U. S. Navy Yard in South Philadelphia. The senior draftsman for the design of the buildings was a young Louis Kahn, later a world-renowned architect. Sculptor Charles Tefft as chosen as the director of sculpture for the fair while noted Philadelphia sculptor, the fair drew a much smaller crowd than anticipated. It ended up unable to cover its debts and was placed into receivership in 1927, organizers constructed an 80-foot replica of the Expositions symbol, the Liberty Bell, covered in 26,000 light bulbs, at the gateway to the festival. Sesqui-Centennial Stadium was built in conjunction with the fair, also on display at the exposition was the Curtis Organ, still one of the largest pipe organs in the world. In 1926 the first bridge spanning the Delaware River between center city Philadelphia and Camden, New Jersey, was built in anticipation of the attending crowds, key speakers at the opening ceremonies were Secretary of State Frank B. Kellogg, Secretary of Commerce and future President Herbert Hoover, the Exposition also included an amusement area, located within League Island Park. The area was designated as “Treasure Island. ”It occupied over five acres and was referred to as a children’s paradise, a variety of amusements and entertainment were available. Included were a replica of the Canadian Rockies, a railroad, mountain slide, Robinson Crusoe’s Beach. Naval Air Facility Mustin Field was dedicated at the Philadelphia Navy Yard on September 17,1926, Mustin, Navy Air Pilot No.3, and Naval Aviator No. 11, who recorded the first catapult launch from a vessel on November 5,1915 when he flew off of USS North Carolina in a Curtiss Model AB-2. The dedication took place toward the end of the six-month Philadelphia Sesquicentennial Exposition, thirty foreign nations attended the Sesqui, and all the planes from the exhibition flew in formation with aircraft of the Army, Navy, and Marine Corps to honor Mustin. Benito Mussolini commemorated the Sesquicentennial by donating an ornate fountain to Philadelphia, installed in Fairmount Park, it was neglected for many years before being restored in 2013. A Commemorative stamp, showing the Liberty Bell was printed, and these were a silver half dollar and a gold Quarter eagle. The fifty cent coin shows the heads of George Washington and Calvin Coolidge on the obverse, the $2 1/2 coin has on the obverse Liberty holding a torch and the Declaration of Independence while standing on a globe, the reverse depicts Independence Hall
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