The mint at Philadelphia was the sole United States mint from 1792 to 1833. It was located at 37 and 39 North Seventh street, and the actual coining was done in a brick building in the rear, which was erected by the govern ment. These buildings were sold at auction in 1836. In 1835 the New Orleans mint was es tablished. This was suspended in 1861, and was not reopened until 1879. Coining was again suspended there in 1909. The mint at Charlotte, N. C., was organized in 1838; sus pended in 1861; and abolished in 1913. The San Francisco mint was established in 1853, and the Denver mint in 186Z The mint at Carson City was organized in 1870, but coinage was suspended there in 1893.
In Great Britain there was formerly a mint in almost every county. Besides the sovereign, barons, bishops and the principal monasteries exercised the right of coining. From the time of William the Conqueror the great bulk of the coining of Great Britain was done in London, but it was not till the reign of William III that all the provincial mints were abolished. The present mint on Tower Hill, in London, was erected between the years 1810 and 1815. The
furnaces of the British, or Royal, Mint number 16 and are gas fired, consuming 15,000 cubic feet of gas per hour. In the five-year period 1911-16 there was melted in these furnaces precious metals to the amount of 9,900 tons. The London mint supplies the whole of the coinage of the British Empire, except Australia and the East Indies, which are supplied from branch mints at Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Cal cutta and Bombay. In France the number of mints was at one time considerable, and in the earliest times indefinite. Before the Revolution there were 27 mints, each of which had a letter or letters of the alphabet for its sign. In 1857 there were still seven French mints, namely, Paris, Bordeaux, Lille, Lyons, Marseilles, Rouen and Strassburg. In 1858 those of Lille, Marseilles and Rouen were abolished, and in 1860 that of Lyons, so that there were only three mints remaining in 1870, when Strassburg was taken by the Germans.
Consult Director of the United States Mint,