First (?) US Mint medal made with a reducing lathe.... 0

[RWB]

Was this the first Philadelphia Mint medal made using a reducing lathe?

Top - Description and terracotta original.

Bottom - 1840 letter describing manufacture of the medal hub.

Medallion of Benjamin Franklin (1777). Jean-Baptiste Nini, Italian (active France), 1717 - 1786. Based on a drawing by Thomas Walpole, English, 1755 - 1840. Diameter: 5 inches. Terracotta.

Label:
Clay medallions of Benjamin Franklin were among the earliest portraits of the statesman available in France. Their maker, Nini, worked for Jacques Donatien Le Ray de Chaumont, Franklin's pro-American landlord. Franklin sent one example to his daughter Sarah and her husband, Richard Bache, who thought the medallion a better likeness than the print by Augustin de Saint-Aubin, which Franklin also sent them. Philadelphia Museum of Art.

(Private)

Mint of the United States

January 15, 1840

Dear Sir,

            I have the pleasure to send you by the present mail, two medals, with the head of Franklin, one of which I pray you to give to the President. We think the head the finest that has yet been executed at the Mint, but what gives it the principal interest is that the die, or rather the hub, was formed, not by the tedious and exhaustive labor of an artist, but by a portrait lathe, which I caused to be made in Paris [for our Mint], at the suggestion of Mr. Peale, and which I have before stated to you we have employed very advantageously, in making dies for the Mint.

The original of our present work was a medallion head of Franklin, in burnt clay, of about five inches in diameter. From this, as a pattern, a casting was made in iron, at Boston, and was as smooth and as perfect as the best work of the kind in Berlin. This casting formed the pattern to be placed in the portrait lathe, and enabled us to turn, in cast steel, a hub which was a reduced facsimile of it, and which needed only a slight retouching by the graver. This hub, being hardened, forms a tool with which the die, (and indeed any number of dies,) may be made by the force of a powerful screw press. With the die, the medals are struck as usual.

            The process which we have met with in this regard is due mainly to the ingenuity and perseverance of Mr. Peale, our Chief Coiner, and has not been attained without much difficulty and after many failures. It appears to me that it must lead to a new era in the making of medals, by enabling us to dispense entirely with the difficult art of the die sinker. All that is now required is a good model made in wax, clay, or any other plastic material; the rest of the process is purely mechanical.

                                    Very truly and

                                    Respectfully yours,

                                    R. M. P.

Edited April 16, 2021 by RWB

[Just Bob]

Who is (was) "R.M.P.?

[Hoghead515]

Very cool. Thanks for sharing 

Edited April 17, 2021 by Hoghead515

[numisport]

47 minutes ago, Just Bob said:

Who is (was) "R.M.P.?

Probably would have been mint director Robert M. Patterson M.D. for the time period. I see a few of these early directors were M.D.'s

[coinsandmedals]

Thank you for sharing! It appears similar technology was already in use at the Soho Mint by 1799. I can’t help but wonder what our coinage would have looked like had Boulton provided either coinage or machinery to the U.S. Mint from its onset.

[GoldFinger1969]

As I understand it, from the mid-1800's through the 1930's.....you made a master die on a big 12" or so mold....and then the lathe somehow "shrinks" it down to die-size while maintaining detail and the correct proportions of the fields and devices ?

I'm sure this is covered in FMTM, have to re-hit it.

I only used a lathe in 8th grade wood shop and as I recall it just held the bowl I was making while I shaved it. 

Today, it's all digital.  Probably started to go digital 30-40 years ago, I'll bet...maybe earlier.

Edited April 17, 2021 by GoldFinger1969

[GoldFinger1969]

Some basic lathe information:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reducing_Machine

They used a Janvier Lathe at the US Mint up to 13 years ago.

[RWB]

A reducing lathe is a complicated pantograph for proportional reduction. They are described and illustrated in From Mine to Mint. (No -- a "pantograph" does not iron your pants or print cute slogans on the bottoms of you jeans.)

Edited April 18, 2021 by RWB

[Fenntucky Mike]

How did the role of the die sinker change after the introduction of the reducing lathe? Did they have a good union? 

[RWB]

Reducing lathes were expensive and difficult to operate (note a comment in the letter, above). No US medal makers had one until George Soley built one for his use as part of the private medal business he and William Barber owned. (Both were US Mint employees thoroughly familiar with making reductions, dies, etc.) That home-made version is the only one I know of until Tiffany and later others bought a Hill's English version from the Wyons in the 1880s. Until then, diesinkers continued to cut hubs or master dies by hand. Most of the Civil War tokens were made by combining prepared portrait matrices with letter punches and ornaments.

A primary complaint about James Longacre was that he was merely a mechanic - making reductions from models - and not a real artist and diesinker.