Mint 150: Lecture, Minting, and Tours

Description

10:00 am 1870 Mint Building Tour led by Robert Nylen, Curator of History

11:00 am “Mints and Assayers – Inside the Carson City Mint” by Paul Franklin

Seven U.S. Mints were established by Congress to receive, analyze and refine the gold and silver from the various mining districts. They were authorized to coin the metals to meet the monetary needs of our growing nation. Often, they were preceded by privately run Territorial mints to meet the early coinage needs. However, the U.S. mints were not enough to meet all the local mining output, so the government approved eight more dedicated regional assay offices that analyzed and purified the precious metals but did not produce coinage. The Carson City mint was the last mint to be established and even after halting coinage operations continued as a U.S. assay office. This program takes a closer look at the operations of assaying, refining and coinage of our metallic money.

Paul Franklin has published history articles in professional journals, is a lecturer at the UNR’s Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, the Comstock Foundation, the Carson City Mint Museum and appeared on the local TV program: Old Tales of Nevada: Past and Present. His first book, “Anatomy of an Ingot” follows the careers of three mining engineers and assayers who figured significantly in Nevada’s early silver mining boom. Paul is presently finishing another book about a Comstock Mining attorney who met an untimely death at the end of a gun held by his mistress who was a formerly a boarding house manager in Virginia City during the early 1860’s.

12:00 pm-4:00 pm Coin Press No. 1 Demonstrations in the Historic Carson City mint building. You can purchase a silver planchet and have it minted in front of you.

1:30 pm 1870 Mint Building Tour led by Robert Nylen, Curator of History

Admission is $8 for adults and free for members and children age 17 and under.

Coeur Rochester, Inc. is a sponsor of The Nevada State Museum’s Mint 150 Celebration