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The origin of the word "mint" is ascribed to the manufacture of silver coin at the temple of Juno Moneta in 269 BCE Rome. This goddess became the personification of money, and her name was applied both to money and to its place of manufacture. Roman mints were spread widely across the Empire, and were sometimes used for propaganda purposes.
The U.S. Mint is one of two U.S. agencies that manufactures physical money. The other is the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, which prints paper currency. The first United States Mint was created in Philadelphia in 1792, and soon joined by other centers, whose coins were identified by their own mint marks.
The Coinage Act of 1792 (also known as the Mint Act; officially: An act establishing a mint, and regulating the Coins of the United States), passed by the United States Congress on April 2, 1792, created the United States dollar as the country's standard unit of money, established the United States Mint, and regulated the coinage of the United States. [1]
Today the United States Mint is largest mint manufacturer in the world, operating across six sites and producing as many as 28 billion coins in a single year. [2] Its largest site is the Philadelphia Mint which covers 650,000 square feet [3] (6 hectares) and can produce 32 million coins per day. [4]
The West Point Mint produces bullion coinage (including proofs). [4] Philadelphia and Denver produce the dies used at all of the mints. The proof and mint sets are manufactured each year and contain examples of all of the year's circulating coins. The producing mint of each coin may be easily identified, as most coins bear a mint mark.
Minting, coining or coinage is the process of manufacturing coins using a kind of stamping, the process used in both hammered coinage and milled coinage. [a] This "stamping" process is different from the method used in cast coinage.
Made of 95% copper and 5% tin and zinc alloy, it sold for $1.7 million in 2010 but is valued at $2.3 million in mint uncirculated condition. 1913 Liberty Head Nickel: $4.2 million
The third Philadelphia Mint was built at 1700 Spring Garden Street and opened in 1901. It was designed by William Martin Aiken, Architect for the Treasury, but it was constructed under James Knox Taylor. In one year alone, the mint produced 501 million coins (5/7 of the U.S. currency minted), and 90 million coins for foreign countries. [3]