Search of the Week: 1902 Mint Report

This week a Newman Portal user searched for the 1902 U.S. Mint Report. The Newman Portal has an extensive set of annual reports of the Director of the Mint, courtesy of several contributors including Dan Hamelberg, Bill Burd, and Paul Hybert. The report for 1902 is one of the more prized in the series, with content not found in other reports. The 1902 publication represented the “coming out” party for the newly erected (third) U.S. Mint facility in Philadelphia on Spring Garden Street (the fourth Mint opened in 1969, the third is today occupied by the Community College of Philadelphia). An appendix contains an extensive description of the new Mint home, along with a series of full page photographs of Mint equipment, which are accompanied by technical drawings of the various apparatus. Earlier in the report is a record of circulation coinage in 1902 – thousands of pieces were sorted by denomination and date and this is documented in multiple tables. This account is the best record of what one found in pocket change at the beginning of the 20th century. Not surprisingly, collectors were already pulling out rare dates, particularly the minor silver coinage of the 1880s.Link to U.S. Mint Reports on Newman Portal: https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/publisherdetail/51