Up next in 10
EAC President Bill Eckberg gave a fascinating talk at the 2018 EAC Convention, where he discussed his ongoing research on the production techniques employed by the U.S. Mint to create dies in its first few years of operation.
Bill uses photo analysis to show the relationship between several prominent varieties of half cents and cents, as well as pattern coins like the 1792 half disme and disme.
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[Music]
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so we're gonna talk about the first
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coinage dyes we're going to talk about
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how they were made and who made them and
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there's some information that will be in
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this talk that I hope will convince you
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that pretty much everything you've
0:21
learned about how the mint worked in the
0:24
beginning is not true and I think it's
0:27
always fun to discover new things so
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there's two ways you can make a dye the
0:31
first is by direct engraving and you use
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tools like these the on the left is a
0:38
graver or a Burin Buuren you use those
0:42
to cut lines to incise lines the middle
0:46
one is a scraper it's a triangular steel
0:49
structure with three sharpened edges and
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you use that to gouge out large areas
0:55
and the third one is burnisher and the
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burnisher is used to smooth out
1:02
roughness smooth out roughness and if
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you see a tooled coin these are the
1:08
tools that are used to tool coins as
1:10
well so you make dyes and you you mess
1:15
with real coins with the same tools in
1:19
addition to to make a die you can use
1:22
small punches and I've taken some of the
1:26
images off of chain and wreath sense and
1:29
just shown how these punches were made
1:32
or looked here's an EVE a chain a chain
1:37
link I should say it's got two holes in
1:40
it and we'll explain that in a second if
1:42
you haven't already figured it out
1:44
and then there are different leaves and
1:46
notice that this leaf is a strawberry
1:49
leaf and that strawberry leaf is on the
1:52
reverse of every wreath scent so if you
1:55
own a wreath scent you own a strawberry
1:57
leaf and you don't have to pay hundreds
1:59
of thousands of dollars here's what you
2:02
need to make a chain scent you need four
2:06
number punches for the date two more of
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a different size for the denomination
2:12
a ABCDEF I shall hem and ORS tu and why
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for the letters a chain link and you can
2:20
see that they overlap and that's why the
2:23
cutouts had to be in the chain link
2:25
that's all you need
2:27
as far as punches are concerned and
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we'll talk about more about how the
2:32
chain dies were made in a bit second way
2:35
to make dyes is by making a hub and
2:37
we'll talk about how hugging is done as
2:40
well a hub can be a larger design like
2:43
for example this is a reconstruction of
2:47
the hub from an 1804 dollar and you can
2:51
also have the entire design hubbed and
2:53
what this is is a reconstruction of the
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hub that was used for 1794 half cents
2:59
they really did make a hub for 1794 half
3:03
cents it was not successful
3:07
they had to reengage so many things on
3:09
each individual die that they never
3:11
hugged a complete die for a half cent
3:14
again until 1840 they did try to hub
3:18
some large cents a little after that and
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it didn't work any better for that than
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it did for half cents here's an overlay
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of the three dies that were made from
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that hub and you may not be able to see
3:31
it in the back but you can see that the
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letters don't match up
3:35
although ER I see a the the denomination
3:41
and uni and half cent actually do match
3:46
quite well but the stuff that's up at
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the top a lot of the leaves are in
3:51
different places they had to do a lot of
3:53
Rhian graving it took about four days to
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produce a large hub for a for a coin at
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that time four to five days and it took
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about a day to engrave the rest of the
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die from from a hub reverses could be
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done more quickly they could be done in
4:14
about a day because all you're doing is
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banging in a bunch of letters and leads
4:17
and that didn't take so long so it just
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wasn't worthwhile to hub the
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verse of 1/2 Center a large cent in
4:26
1790s so why would you have it die it
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allows dyes to be mass-produced saves
4:32
you time and money
4:34
produces more consistent dyes and coins
4:37
and thereby reduces counterfeiting so
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there is every reason to hub dies every
4:42
reason to do it and you might wonder why
4:46
the myth didn't do it well how do you
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make a hub you start with a thing called
4:50
a matrix also known as a master dye and
4:53
this is a real matrix or master die for
4:58
1/2 royale coin that is in the
5:02
collection of Ray Williams and he sent
5:04
me these pictures and allowed me to use
5:05
them and I appreciate that and you can
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see that you have an M with a crown that
5:11
shows that it's from the Madrid mint
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1789 is the year that it was made here
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is Carlos the fourth who was the the
5:21
King at the time and that at the bottom
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is the engravers name so pulled it up
5:27
you can call this a matrix or a master
5:30
die either term is correct and that's
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the size of the coin that would have
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been produced from this master die if
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you look carefully you can see it's not
5:42
but it's not from that master die but
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it's the right year and the right size
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here's a side view of it it's a big
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chunk of steel there's a little indent
5:55
for that for a Chuck heat they hold it
5:57
in place in a vise or something and this
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little cross down here is a blacksmith's
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mark or at least they believe it to be a
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blacksmith's mark
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here's how humming is done today these
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are our images from the US Mint you
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start with a die blank it's a cylinder
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that is at the top cut into the shallow
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cone and then you have a hub the hub
6:27
looks just exactly like the final coin
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is supposed to look it's in relief like
6:31
the coin the letters all face the same
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way as on the coin because that's going
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to be impressed into the die you then go
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to a humming press which squeezes
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literally squeezes this working hub into
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the top of the die blank it moves a
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great deal of metal as you can see and
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produces the in Coos die and then they
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machine down the die too to make it the
7:00
right size so let's talk about 1792 the
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officers of the mint there were only
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three at the time David Rittenhouse was
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the director everybody knows that
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Tristram Daulton was the treasurer and I
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had a terrible time finding a color
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picture of him there the the picture
7:21
that you always come up with on the
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Internet is a very grainy
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black-and-white image but this is
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Tristram Daulton he had been a senator
7:29
he was elected for a two-year term
7:31
because when the first senators were
7:33
elected they were elected for two four
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or six years at the end of the two-year
7:38
term he was not re-elected and he was
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looking for a job and he got a job as
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the treasurer of the mint and Henry Boyd
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was the chief coiner Pro Tem
7:48
he was the temp in a temporary
7:50
appointment they were trying to hire
7:52
somebody from Europe to serve as both
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chief coiner and engraver and so he was
8:00
actually in a temporary appointment for
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quite a while there are no known
8:04
pictures of him unfortunately because he
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turns out to be the man who basically
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put them in together he's really the
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most important person in the first US
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Mint so everyone at the mint was new to
8:18
his job
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the
8:20
had no engraver so who's gonna make the
8:22
dies who's gonna make the dies well
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there were several people in 1792 that
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engrave dies first one is a guy named
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birch whose first name may or may not
8:36
have been Robert they do not know so if
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you see it as Robert birch maybe maybe
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not and birch created this sent pattern
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this is a beautiful example of it his
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name is engraved right at the truncation
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of the shoulder and then it's enlarged
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so you can see it says birch famous coin
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Bert's ten it's called the birch cent
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because his name is on it
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the half dime or half deem or half
9:06
Disney depending on who you are and what
9:08
you like it's probably also by the same
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guy largely because the style is very
9:14
very similar and we'll come back to this
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coin in a minute Joseph Wright who you
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heard mentioned a couple of talks ago if
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you were here for JK's talk Joseph
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Wright created this metal the Henry Lee
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Medal for his valor at Paulus Hook he
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also signed it at the truncation of the
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neck Jay Wright and I've enlarged that
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Henry boy also made dies in 1792 he
9:42
created the silver Center cent and this
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one actually does have a silver plug in
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it one of the finest known and he
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created this the dime pattern or D more
9:57
Disney however you want to pronounce it
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and if we look at the obverses of the
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half dime and the dime I want you to
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just look at the lettering if you can
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see it it looks like the letters are
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much larger on the small coin than on
10:12
the big coin doesn't it looks like that
10:15
to me but they're actually the same size
10:17
they're actually made from the exact
10:19
same font they're made from the same
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punches here are the reverses again look
10:25
how big dime looks there versus this you
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can layer one right over the other and
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they're exactly the same so they used
10:34
the same punches for the for the
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lettering on both of these denominations
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and in fact the same font was used for
10:41
the 1793 half cents and then there's
10:46
this thing when I say what is it it's
10:49
variously called a cent a quarter dollar
10:52
and a half eagle most people now call it
10:54
a quarter dollar pattern because Joseph
10:58
Wright claimed to have created a quarter
11:00
dollar pattern this is basically a
11:04
thought that was invented by Don taxi in
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the 1960s until then it was held in the
11:10
US Mint collection as a cent now it does
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not meet the legal requirements for a
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cent because it's got an eagle on the
11:19
back and since are not allowed legally
11:21
to have an eagle on the back so whatever
11:25
it was intended to be it wasn't a cent
11:27
the other thing that's interesting about
11:29
this is that the dyes were quite
11:31
different in size see that large looks
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like a broad strike on the front the
11:38
back is struck normally so these dyes
11:42
are actually quite different and we'll
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talk about that in a second the coin and
11:46
this is from from crosby from well over
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100 years ago the coin you refer to is
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in the mint cabinet is of copper and
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weighs 175 and a half grains nothing is
11:58
certainly known of its history but it
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was one of the pieces handed over to the
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cabinet by the late Adamek felt who was
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connected with the mint from its origin
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and as it cannot well be referred to any
12:09
other source I feel pretty sure it's a
12:11
trial piece made at the mint I have
12:14
never seen
12:15
the lettering is feeble and so on so
12:18
nobody really knows where this was made
12:20
it does appear to be a mint product go
12:25
back to it it has no denomination the
12:28
reverse is 29 millimeters the obverse is
12:30
25 and a half a half-dollar is 32
12:34
millimeters 1/4 27 Assent 27 1/2 Eagle
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25 and 1/2 cent 24.5 so you know it
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could have been a plan for a half dollar
12:46
and a quarter it could have been the
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obverse could have been for a half eagle
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or it could have even conceivably been
12:54
for a half cent but if it wasn't just
12:58
for one coin at least if it was it was a
13:01
really sloppy job none of the sizes fit
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we have no way to know what it is or who
13:08
made it 1793 Jefferson was trying to
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hire someone from Europe to serve as
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both chief corner and engraver the chief
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coin er was to be paid $1500 a year the
13:24
engraver was to be paid $1,200 a year
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and they figured if they could hire one
13:29
person to do both jobs they could save
13:31
$1,200 a year and that's exactly what
13:34
they were trying to do they worked to
13:37
get this guy's on PR Droste
13:38
who at one time had worked in Paris and
13:41
was working in Birmingham England at the
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time and he jerked him around for about
13:45
a year and never came Jefferson gave up
13:50
in June in July Washington and Jefferson
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decided to give Joseph Wright a recess
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appointment as engraver
13:59
this is Joseph Wright and his family
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this is a painting at least part of
14:04
which he did this is him his wife and
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they had three little children these two
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were twins or at least we assumed they
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were twins because they were born in the
14:17
same year they could have been Irish
14:19
twins I suppose unfortunately right died
14:24
on of all days Friday the 13th of
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of 1793 and his wife died about the same
14:32
time and there was actually a notice in
14:35
the newspaper about Wright's death you'd
14:39
mentioned nothing about him working for
14:40
the mint there are no records of the
14:46
appointment of Wright as engraver there
14:50
are no letters no official documents
14:53
from the government confirming this
14:55
appointment however Washington and
14:58
Jefferson both referred to him after his
15:00
death as our engraver and we have to
15:03
replace our engraver so there may be
15:06
something somewhere but nobody has
15:08
founded Elias Boudinot who was the
15:12
second director of the mint was a
15:15
congressman in 1793 or in 1795 when this
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was done and he was leading the charge
15:22
to abolish the mint so he got himself
15:25
appointed to a committee as the chair of
15:27
the committee and they were going to go
15:29
down to the mint and they were gonna
15:30
find out what is wrong with these people
15:33
why they can't make enough coins why
15:35
we're spending all this money and we're
15:37
not getting money in circulation he was
15:39
gonna go down there and he was going to
15:40
destroy the place and he came to
15:43
discover that the reason the mint wasn't
15:46
producing much was because Congress
15:47
wasn't funding them enough and so he
15:50
came back to Congress and he told them
15:53
what they needed to do and one of the
15:54
things he said was it was a considerable
15:58
time before an engraver could be engaged
16:00
during which the chief coin er was
16:02
obliged to make the dies for himself so
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we're back to Henry Voight he was the
16:09
chief corner he was not a trained artist
16:14
he was however a really talented guy who
16:17
was kind of a polymath a clock maker he
16:20
made the engine for the first practical
16:22
US steamboat he made surveying
16:24
instruments he was a good friend of
16:26
Rittenhouse and Jefferson he even
16:28
created a new religion that he called
16:31
the universal society in which you did
16:33
good works because that was the right
16:35
thing to do not because if you didn't
16:37
you would be divinely punished
16:40
it didn't last long so here are some of
16:44
the coins that he created 1793 chain
16:47
said wouldn't you guys like to have this
16:49
one it's one of the finest Amer eyes may
16:53
be the finest Amer I
16:55
here's a nice wreath it's got some
16:58
strawberry leaves back here a red Brown
17:02
wreath how many of those are there 1793
17:07
1/2 cent from the Missouri cabinet all
17:12
of these dyes were supposed to have been
17:14
hand engraved and if you read any book
17:16
they will tell you that these dyes were
17:18
hand engraved and until about a little
17:21
more than a year ago that was believed
17:23
to be true I say but were they a
17:27
rational belief demands the test of a
17:29
preliminary doubt this is out Archibald
17:31
s Cooper Esquire from 1858 I used to
17:36
have this on a poster in my lab that I
17:38
wanted my students to look at because as
17:42
a scientist we teach everybody to
17:45
question everything and we wanted our
17:48
students to question everything the
17:50
poster actually had a guy dressed up for
17:53
winter it's really clutch you know cold
17:55
he's wearing a scarf and a big hat but
17:58
he's got one foot out of his boot and
18:01
he's sticking his toe in the water a
18:03
rational belief demands the test of a
18:05
preliminary doubt and I was thinking
18:08
that these two phases these are the two
18:10
1793 half cent
18:12
versus those phases look a lot alike the
18:16
hair doesn't hair is very different the
18:19
liberty caps are very different but
18:21
those phases sure look a lot alike so
18:24
what I did was overlay these in
18:26
Photoshop in yellow and cyan because the
18:30
colors are quite different and you can
18:32
see that the face the entire bust from
18:36
the ear the eyes the nose the mouth the
18:38
chin the throat the bust line everything
18:42
matches perfectly the hair does not the
18:46
Liberty Cap does not
18:49
so these coins were were hugged in other
18:53
words these were not hand engraved the
18:56
hair was hand engraved the cap was hand
18:58
engraved the poles you can see there's
19:01
two poles those were hand engraved but
19:04
Liberty's face was not so the question
19:08
is was this hub created for 1793 half
19:11
cents or did it already exist again why
19:16
would you think it would previously
19:17
exist the problem is the 1792 dime
19:21
pattern looks a lot like that half cent
19:24
doesn't it look at the two faces
19:29
side-by-side they look a lot alike and
19:32
this was actually noted by Crosby in his
19:35
in his big book he commented on that
19:40
nobody ever commented on it again until
19:42
Walter Breen in 1954 he said the remark
19:46
the the resemblance was remarkable and
19:48
he said it proved that they were by the
19:50
same hand in other words the same
19:52
engraver did these two but he didn't go
19:56
any further than that well why would
19:58
they hub a dime from 1792 it was a
20:00
pattern wasn't intended for coinage
20:03
there are 22 known in copper about half
20:06
of which circulated probably as half
20:08
cents because they were the right size
20:11
if 10% of the half dimes survived then
20:14
that suggests that fewer than 250 dimes
20:17
were ever made all from the same dye
20:21
pair so why would you hub something
20:24
that's going to be used for a pattern
20:25
that's only going to be used briefly
20:28
like that a rational belief demands the
20:32
test of a preliminary doubt and if we
20:35
take these and overlay them once again
20:39
the face is the same the forehead the
20:42
eyes the nose the mouth the chin even
20:45
the jawline the ear the neck the
20:48
bustline exactly the same
20:52
this is one of those discoveries that
20:56
was out there in front of everybody for
20:59
for 225 years and and nobody noticed it
21:04
Liberty from the two dyes is also again
21:07
the same font so here's the hub that
21:12
created those three dyes we don't know
21:15
what was back here so I've kind of
21:18
grayed that out but you can see that the
21:20
face the eye the year the nose the mouth
21:22
and so on everything is exactly the same
21:25
those the dime and the half cent were
21:28
from the same hub so void created a hub
21:32
in 1792 reused it for another
21:34
denomination in 1793 who would expect
21:39
that well why did we create a hub we can
21:42
only speculate but Jefferson was trying
21:44
to hire one person to take both jobs boy
21:47
wanted the job he didn't have another
21:49
job he was trying to show what he could
21:51
do and and how better to do it than to
21:54
create a hub in 1792 and use it
21:57
especially to reuse it in 1793 again
22:02
this is speculation I don't know that
22:04
that's true but nothing else makes sense
22:06
to me did you have anything else well we
22:11
know the chain wreath and Liberty Cap
22:12
scents were struck before the half cent
22:14
so we're any of those hugged I did an
22:17
overlay with the chain dies and this is
22:21
s 1 over s 4 and you can see that I've
22:26
aligned the chins but the eyes the ears
22:29
the nose the throat and the bustline are
22:31
all completely different so these were
22:33
not produced from the same hub and I've
22:36
done these overlays with all four chain
22:39
dyes and they are all individually hand
22:41
engraved none of them were hugged these
22:46
are also in very low relief unlike the
22:49
half set or the dime that you saw and in
22:53
a way it looks like these were maybe
22:54
some kind of a rush job they were just
22:56
trying to get these out so that they
22:58
could get something out in February of
23:00
1793
23:03
the chain converses were hand engraved
23:05
how about the wreath this is s 9 10 and
23:08
11 overlay the hair is very psychedelic
23:12
because the hair is a little different
23:14
in each dye but the faces and the bust
23:18
lines are exactly the same just like
23:20
with the half sense
23:25
here's one that nobody has seen because
23:27
I hadn't published this before this is
23:29
s6 and NC 3 it's a strawberry leaf and
23:32
it's dark but there's a strawberry leaf
23:34
right there and the strawberry leaf is
23:38
in wretched condition it's all terribly
23:41
corroded but to the extent that you can
23:44
tell it does line up with the others so
23:48
in all likelihood all of the wreaths
23:51
were made from the same hub and this is
23:54
sort of one more nail in the coffin of
23:56
the notion that the strawberry leaves
23:59
were not a mint product there's lots of
24:02
other evidence that it was in that
24:03
product but this is sort of one more
24:06
nail in that coffin
24:08
so the wreaths cents were hugged and
24:11
that's what the hub looked like here's a
24:16
1793 Liberty Cap sent Danes favorite
24:21
coin this is the finest known as 13 the
24:24
finest known 1793 Liberty Cap set is the
24:28
hub that created it you it does have the
24:33
pole it does have the cap unlike the
24:35
half cent hub that was used because the
24:38
half cent hub was made for something
24:39
else
24:43
so that coin is usually attributed to
24:45
right but unfortunately right was not
24:48
paid for any work at the mint in 1793 I
24:51
worked for the government both as a
24:53
contractor and as an employee at
24:55
different times and I know that if you
24:57
work for the government they pay you and
24:59
I'm sure that was the same in 1793 he
25:03
asked that his estate be paid for the
25:05
henry lee medal he asked on his deathbed
25:06
in fact two days before he died they did
25:10
not pay him until after he died it was
25:14
it was paid it was paid fifty guineas or
25:17
two hundred and thirty three dollars and
25:19
33 cents he asked that as a state be
25:22
paid for a quarter dollar pattern that
25:24
broke in hardening it was not paid for
25:25
that which is one of another reason to
25:29
suspect that that eagle on globe peace
25:33
is not his quarter dollar pattern and he
25:35
asked to be paid for nothing else if he
25:37
had done any work for the mint in 1793
25:39
he would have been paid and he was not
25:43
the member of 23rd of 1793 Robert Scott
25:47
was hired as engraver but all of the
25:50
1793 cents and a half cents had already
25:52
been delivered so Robert Scott had
25:57
nothing to do with it Henry Boyd
26:00
designed and engraved all of the 1793