A Rare Look Inside The U.S. Mint In Philadelphia
By Pat Loeb
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- After a six-month renovation, the tour of the U.S. Mint in Philadelphia re-opened to the public on Tuesday. KYW Newsradio's Pat Loeb got a behind-the-scenes look at Mint operations.
The largest Mint in the world covers a square city block near Independence Mall and turns out 30-million coins a day.
The process begins with artists like Joe Menna, sculpting designs in plaster.
"We're the people responsible for all the designs that make their way on to U.S. coins," Menna points out.
Play or download the full Mint Tour podcast (runs 5:08)…
Their models are digitized and sent to engraver Jerry Burdsall.
"I will program these machines to etch a positive image of that artwork into a reduction hub," Burdsall says.
The hubs are used to make the dyes that actually stamp the coins. But first those dyes are polished by machines operated by Dave Puglia.
"It is absolutely critical that we do not polish out or eliminate any of the detail on that dye," says Puglia.
Then it's on to the production floor where machines punch blanks out of rolled sheets of metal and others stamp on the design and dump them into canvas bags that go to banks -- and ultimately, into your pocket.
