A Guide Book of the United States Mint (Red Book)

Now, volume #23 takes you behind the scenes to explore the federal bureau responsible for all those coins: the United States Mint itself.

Award-winning author Q. David Bowers has written an engaging and fact-filled history of early mints in America, from official colonial coin factories to illegal counterfeiting operations like the mysterious Machin's Mills of New York. The journey continues into federal coinage with the birth and growth of the Philadelphia Mint, the bureau's impressive main production facility. The branch mints at New Orleans, Charlotte, Dahlonega, San Francisco, Carson City, Denver, and West Point are all studied in detail, with historical photos and scenes from today.

Bowers shines light on the private mints of 1800s Georgia and North Carolina—scenes of the earliest U.S. gold rushes—and the private and territorial mints of California, Oregon, Utah and Colorado—the sources of fascinating gold coins and ingots that circulated in the Wild West. They also take their study overseas, to the Manila Mint in the Philippines, which struck millions of bronze, copper-nickel, and silver coins during the U.S. sovereignty.

Special sections show how to build a meaningful collection of Mint-related medals, tokens, and other collectibles.

Readers will meet the personalities behind the U.S. Mint, and learn about gold and silver rushes, national and local politics, technology, economics, and other factors that have driven the Mint for more than 220 years. This is a unique look inside the mints of today—powerhouses that created and produce some of the most amazing coinage of all time—and how they came to be.