Mint (facility)

“ This Sort of Mint is hard to be met with; but is lately cultivated in some Physick Gardens at Mitcham. It must be kept well weeded, and the top of the Bed, where it grows, must, when we cut it, be pricked up, a little, with a small Fork, or the Earth made fine with a Trowel; because the Runners, of this sort of Mint, shoot along upon the Surface of the Ground, and so at the Joints strike Root, which is contrary to other Sorts of Mint, which shoot their Runners under ground.
Damson-Wine to imitate Claret. ”

“ The allowance under the name of drink money is hereafter to be discontinued, and in place of it three dollars extra wages per month will be allowed for the three summer months to those workmen who continue in the Mint through that season. No workman can be permitted to bring spirituous liquors into the Mint. Any workman who shall be found intoxicated within the Mint must be reported to the Director, in order that he may be discharged. ”

“ All of the scales and delicate test instruments in use by the government, not only in Philadelphia Mint, but at the several branch mints, are manufactured in this country, and as examples of wonderful mechanical machines of minute accuracy they lead the world. ”

“ O leaves of mint!
Drink deep! A fifth or sixth we might
Negotiate ere George takes fright
And bears away the nectar—long
I kiss you, ice-chilled silver. Wrong
To drink? The very dons are tight,
O leaves of mint! ”

“ I have been assured that many of them can, even in the dark, distinguish between several kinds of money, whose size and weight bear no great dissimilarity: besides, even those coins that bear the same value, and come from the same mint, differ greatly in both those particulars; some being broad and flat, like a shilling, though not defaced; while others are more dumpy, and, though of purer metal, not so ponderous. ”

“ A peculiar sort of sweet pudding, which appeared on no other occasion, distinguished the days of his coming. I used to think him a prodigiously rich man. All I could make out of him was, that he and my father had been schoolfellows a world ago at Lincoln, and that he came from the Mint. The Mint I knew to be a place where all the money was coined—and I thought he was the owner of all that money. Awful ideas of the Tower twined themselves about his presence. He seemed above human infirmities and passions. ”

“ It probably has the King's head on it, or it may have King Edward's, or Queen Victoria's head if it is a very old one. Anything further back than that would be valuable as a curiosity. All these shillings are the same value, and it makes no difference which one you use, and they have all been made at the Mint in London. It is not difficult for anyone to get leave to go to see over the Mint, and it is a very interesting thing to do. The building is near the Tower, and does not look at all grand; in fact, it is difficult to believe that such riches can come out of any building so poor looking. ”

“ No profane or indecent language can be tolerated in the Mint. Smoking within the Mint is inadmissible. The practice is of dangerous tendency; experience proves that this indulgence in public institutions, ends at last in disaster. Visitors may be admitted by permission of an officer, to see the various operations of the Mint on all working days except Saturdays and rainy days; they are to be attended by an officer, or some person designated by him. The new coins must not be given in [16] exchange for others to accommodate visitors, without the consent of the Chief Coiner. ”

“ It may be proper to mention that the Mint building is on the best street in the city, is of large dimensions, with the whole exterior of marble, and two Ionic porticos; and that the machinery and apparatus are of the best construction. The cost must therefore be considered as very moderate. The new Mint lately erected by the British India Government at Calcutta, cost 24 lacs of rupees, or about $1,138,000.
[20]
No expenses are allowed, beyond the above sums, to any officer, assistant, or clerk, for the performance of his duties. ”

“ The assistant assayer, after a last lingering look at his little blue flasks—he was testing the amount of silver in deposits of ore brought in to the Mint from all over the country—if you find any in your back yard the Mint will pay you a dollar an ounce for it—was gracious enough to give me some fleeting glances at the fascinating work going on in the building. The first thing one realizes is the presence of the benign and silent goddess of Science. ”

“ Mint, mint, n. the place where money is coined by government: a place where anything is invented or made: any source of abundant supply.—v.t. to coin: to invent.—ns. Mint′age, the money which is minted or coined: the duty paid for coining; Mint′er, one who mints or coins: an inventor; Mint′-man, one skilled in coining or coinage; Mint′-mark, a private mark put by the mint on coins for purposes of identification; Mint′-mas′ter, the master of a mint: one who invents. ”

“ A mint will, therefore, become of the utmost importance, to give such marketable value to silver bullion as to enable the merchants of those countries to keep up and increase the intercourse with our principal ports on the Pacific. ”

“ Nearly two-thirds of our coinage comes from the mint at Philadelphia, which is the largest and most completely equipped mint in the world. The coins for nearly all the South American countries are also made in this mint. ”

“ It has been said that the reception of Silver by the Mint is no demand at all, because it is not purchase but merely a return in another form of the same ounce of Silver that is brought to it.
That seems to me to be mere logomachy. Whether the action is called purchase or no signifies nothing. Of course it only gives you back the Silver that you bring, but the 'other form' in which it returns it is Money. There is nothing mysterious about Money, but it has the unique quality of discharging debt. The Mint takes all the Silver you can bring, and what can Demand do more? ”

“ As the changers and merchants who are accustomed to bring bullion to our Mint have ceased, and do daily cease to do so, so that the working of our Mint is greatly impeded, to the great prejudice of our people if no remedy is applied, we therefore order that for each mark of silver brought to the Mint there shall be delivered out by the Mint another 8 sols Tournois in addition to the 112 sols Tournois fixed by law. ”

“ We all know that it is more convenient to make our payments, so far as possible, in one coin than in two or more, let it be of gold, silver, or copper. Now, as a matter of ascertained fact, the Mint produces a larger number of shillings than of any other denomination of silver coin. ”

“ On March 4, 1802, Robert Scott, engraver at the mint, wrote the Secretary of Treasury, Albert Gallatin, calling attention to the probability of abolishment of the mint, explained the sacrifices he had made and desired to be invested with the exclusive privilege, according to law, of furnishing cents of the regular weight and quality free of all expense to the government at the face value. ”

“ A small case attracts no little attention, because it contains a single coin; and the interest does not decrease when the inscription is read: “Struck in the Philadelphia Mint, at least two thousand years ago.” The late Assayer of the Philadelphia [50] Mint, Mr. W. E. Du Bois, under title of “The Temple Sweepers,” wrote, not long since, a valuable sketch of this coin, made in the City of Attalus Philadelphus, Asia Minor, and for which William Penn called his city, because the ancient one was a monument of “brotherly love.” Diana was the patroness of Philadelphia. ”

“ The profits of the establishment, during this time, were 126,941 dollars two reals and six grains; yet the miners and rescatadores received dollars for their bars in the short space of four days. As the funds of the mint augment, the facilities for this operation will increase likewise; while mining enterprises, which always receive an impulse in proportion to the means of converting produce, at a fair and fixed price, into the ordinary circulating medium of the country, will undoubtedly prosper in the same ratio as the mint itself. ”

“ The necessary state-privilege of coining money sometimes led to differences between mint-weight and commercial weight. Just as there arose in the ancient East a royal or sacred cubit different from that in vulgar use, so there arose in many countries a royal pound used in the mint and different from the vulgar commercial weight. In many countries, ancient and modern, the mint has kept up systems of weight consecrated by tradition but obsolete for all other uses, and out of harmony with commercial weight. ”

“ COMMON or SPEAR-MINT (Mentha viridis) , one of our most frequent garden herbs, is a native British plant, and grows wild in watery places, and near the banks of rivers, in several parts of England. The ancients ascribed many virtues to different kinds of mint, but it is not now possible to ascertain correctly the respective species, though there can be little doubt that spear-mint was one of the most important of them. Its flavour is to many persons peculiarly agreeable, and, on this account, it is employed for several culinary purposes, both in a green and dried state. ”

“ I show that as the price of Silver, like that of all other commodities, must fluctuate with the Supply of it and the Demand for it, so the open Mint in France acted as a perpetual demand at a fixed price would act, and that accordingly the price here could never fall below what the seller believed was the equivalent of the frs. ”

“ The curators of the mint cabinet do not consent to the intimation in a statement recently made that their widow’s mite is not the real coin.
The expression of a doubt as to any received fact is thought to be a sign of superior insight. Hence we have so much “destructive criticism,” a good deal of it being fatal to the critic himself.
The widow’s mite in our showcase of specialties, always attracting much attention, is precisely what the Scriptures speak of—a lepton, the smallest of Greek and Syriac coins. ”

“ On resuming my visit to the mint I took an early opportunity of stating to the acting governors my ideas respecting a new regulation for supplying mercury to the miners. One great impediment to the use of that metal, so essential in certain branches of the process, was the exorbitant price at which it was exclusively sold by the apothecaries, generally upwards of two shillings the ounce. I suggested that the mint should be the general depository for it, and that it should be issued from thence to the gold-washers without profit. ”

“ The Mint has been continued in Philadelphia, ever since its establishment,—a great commercial city being very properly considered the most suitable situation for such an institution; its operations have been conducted, for many years past, with activity; and there are few coins superior in beauty, to those of the American Mint. ”

“ More has not been asked or desired, for the officers of the Mint have not sought to vie with the long established collections of the national cabinets of the old world, or even to equal the extravagance of some private numismatists; but they have admirably succeeded in their purpose to secure such coins as would interest all, from the schoolboy to the most enthusiastic archæologist. ”

“ Du Bois, Assistant Assayer. The collection grew, year by year, by making exchanges to supply deficiencies, by purchases, by adding our own coin, and by saving foreign coins from the melting-pot—a large part in this way, at a cost of not more than their bullion value, though demanding great care, appreciation, and study. Valuable donations were also made by travelers, consuls, and missionaries. In 1839, Congress appropriated the sum of $1,000 for the purchase of “specimens of ores and coins to be preserved at the Mint.” ”

“ He stated that the necessary machinery for a mint could easily be made and that the advantage of possessing legal money in preference to any other would induce people to carry foreign money to the mint until a sufficiency were struck for the circulating medium, and the remainder of foreign gold and silver coins should be left entirely to the operations of commerce as bullion. ”

“ He instituted the Cabinet of coins which now adorns the Mint. This was commenced in 1838. A small annual appropriation was procured from Congress for this purpose, and the work of collection committed entirely to Mr. Du Bois. He brought to it all the enthusiasm which animates most numismatists, sobered, however, by good judgment. His expenditures were always judicious. Some of the best of the specimens were culled from the Mint deposits for the bullion value, merely, of the pieces. ”

“ He is, therefore, of opinion, on the whole, that a mint, whenever established, should be established at home; that the superiority, the merit, and means of the undertaker, will suggest him as the proper person to be engaged in the establishment and conduct 465 of a mint, on a scale which, relinquishing nothing in the perfection of the coin, shall be duly proportioned to our purposes. ”

“ An arrangement was accordingly at once made for a public establishment—afterward called a mint—to which every person who so desired could bring his gold and receive it back again after it had been divided into suitable pieces of determinate weight and fineness; the fact that the weight and fineness of each piece had been so proved being indicated by appropriate marks upon the metal. And in this manner “coined money” first came into use on the island. ”

“ In the year 1834 a change took place in the ratio of gold to silver in the standard of U. S. coins, the effect of which was to bring large deposits of gold to the Mint. The coinage previously had been chiefly of silver. The more equal supply of the precious metals gave active employment in the assay of each of them, and was, of course, most valuable as an experience to Mr. Du Bois, who about this time became connected with the assay department. ”