HOW US COINS ARE MADE

I was recently advised to watch a couple of short videos online regarding how coins are made. I had never seen them before and, embarrassingly enough, I found that I knew very little about the minting process coins go through in the United States. So I thought I would share the information with you.

As we all know coins are made from metal of various compositions (silver, nickel, copper, etc.) The metal the US Mint uses for making coins comes in very long sheets which are rolled up in much the same way paper towl is. Each coil of sheet metal, about one foot wide, 1500 feet long and weighing around 6000 pounds, is fed into a cookie-cutter machine which stamps out disks of the appropriate size.

Depending on the type of coin being made, the metal disks (or blanks) undergo various treatments such as washing and polishing. Blanks meant to become proof coins would obviously receive more rigorous treatment and polishing to ensure they reach the high standards the mint sets for proof coins.

Once the disks (now called Planchets) are ready, they move on to be formed into the shape of a coin. This is done using a pair of dies. The designs on these dies are very carefully crafted by the most expert artisans. Making a die entails hand-carving and molding the approved design into a form many times larger than the size of a coin. Then a very impressive duplicating machine, which vaguely resembles a bicycle with one large and one small wheel, traces the entire surface of the form and reduces it down to the size of a coin, carving the form into a very hard metal hub. This process takes many hours to complete. This hub is then used to make the dies which are used to strike the coins. Both hubs and dies are made in pairs, one for the front (obverse) of the coin and one for the reverse.

The completed dies are placed in a press with one die on the bottom and the other on top, and the planchets (made of softer metals) are fed in between them one at a time to be stamped. They are stamped with great pressure (the pressure used varies depending on the type of metal and size of the coin) and in the case of proof coins they are struck more than once.

What is most impressive to me is the speed with which the mint produces these coins and the quantity of coins produced on a daily basis. You should watch the videos yourself to get an understanding of this.

SEE THE US MINT VIDEOS

The videos can be found at the following link: "http://www.usmint.gov/mint_tours/index.cfm?flash=yes&action=vtShell". If you copy the link and paste it into your browser's address bar you will go to a page of the US Mint website where you will see two buttons, one for a tour of how Circulating coins are made and one for how Proof coins are made. If your computer has the capability of playing these videos, take a few minutes to watch them. They are very informative.