United States Mint Reviews (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)

United States Mint Tour

Tustin, California

July 5, 2010

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Best of IgoUgo The United States Mint has two locations, we visited the Philadelphia location off 5th Street/Independence Mall East, between Arch and Race Streets. The public entrance faces the National Constitution Center. Neither tickets nor appointments are ...Read more The United States Mint has two locations, we visited the Philadelphia location off 5th Street/Independence Mall East, between Arch and Race Streets. The public entrance faces the National Constitution Center. Neither tickets nor appointments are required. There is a security check, and cameras are not allowed inside the US Mint. I had to hand my camera off to my friend, and we took turns touring the Mint.

The United States Mint in Philadelphia is an imposing looking concrete building, with no windows, and plenty of security guards. After a thorough security check, I started the self-guided tour of the Mint. I went upstairs to the second floor of the Mint, which has a large display of all sorts of different coins that have been produced at the Mint from the past. This place is a numismatists’ (coin and currency collector) paradise. After the second floor, I continued up the escalator to the third floor.

The third floor of the Mint is an observation deck where you can follow and watch the daily operations of the Mint through lexan windows looking down on the production floor of the Mint. In between the windows and different sections of the Mint are displays showing the history of the Mint, the different coins and medals produced. I did find it quite interesting that the Mint doesn’t just make coins, but our military medals, as well as Olympic medals when hosted in the United States. That was something new to me. There were displays of replicas of all sorts of medals, from obscure medals to the Congressional Medal of Honor.

The windows in the Mint showed the various production areas, starting from an area with large forklift machines grabbing large pallets of coin blanks, to an area where copper blanks were being stamped into pennies. I entered the tour around 9 AM, just after the Mint opened for public tours, and there wasn’t much going on at that time, as some of the employees was cleaning the machines, and others employees were just starting up other coin machines. The only machines we saw at work were a penny stamping machine, and a machine making large silver coins. I couldn’t see exactly what the large silver coins were, but they looked to be around 2 inches in diameter. They came out of the machine and rolled down a slide to the end, where they awaited a worker to hand polish them with a cloth. Every now and then, the coins would pile up at the end of the slide, they made a very distinctive clink when the edges of the coin hit each other. Even with all the various noises of the machinery on the production floor of the Mint, I noticed the clink was quite an interesting and actually quite beautiful clink. The worker would polish the coins and place them in individual plastic cases. I never found out what these coins were, but they must have been something special and high priced to warrant such special treatment.

After watching the large silver coin production line, the next stop was an escalator back down to the second level, and then back down to the first level, where there is a gift shop. The gift shop has all sorts of commemorative coins, books, and other unique gifts for sale.

I really liked the United States Mint in Philadelphia tour. It’s free, and it’s self guided, although you’re going in a particular direction, you can take as much time to view a display or look out the windows to the production floor and see how coins are being made. I do recommend coming later than 9AM, as there wasn’t much going on at that time. A few of the displays were quite old and tired looking, maybe even a bit tattered. But I did learn a lot on that tour, and there were a lot of things I found very interesting and educational. It’s very accessible, as it’s just across the street from the Independence National Historical Park areas, making it a very good opportunity to visit. Close

From journal Quick Trip to Philly

United States Mint

by rhondaraeg

San Jose, California

June 26, 2010

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Being from California, most of our statehood quarters were always made from the Denver Mint. We needed to collect some "P" quarters so although there was not any work going on - we could still walk the tour through the mint and end up in the gift ...Read more

From journal Philadelphia June 11-13, 2010

A Penny for your Thoughts on the US Mint

by zabelle

Portland, Connecticut

July 14, 2008

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Best of IgoUgo The first mint in the United States was founding in 1792 in Philadelphia. The cornerstone was laid by Dr. David Rittenhouse. There has been a Mint in Philadelphia ever since though the location has changed slightly.Visiting the mint is free. Be ...Read more The first mint in the United States was founding in 1792 in Philadelphia. The cornerstone was laid by Dr. David Rittenhouse. There has been a Mint in Philadelphia ever since though the location has changed slightly.

Visiting the mint is free. Be warned though, if you have a camera you will not be allowed in the building. There are no lockers to store your camera so someone from your party will have to remain outside. Now we all understand security but since we were allowed to carry in our cell phones most of which have cameras. So Al had to wait outside keeping my two cameras company.

Jeanna and I went inside, we walked through the metal detector and had our telephones ex-rayed then went up two sets of escalators. This is a self guided tour. There are cases along the way with different displays.

As you walk along the corridor you eventually come to some glass windows overlooking the area where the actual coins are produced. The first side is where the blanks are produced and after you round the corner and turn to go back you watch the actually coins being produced. We talked to some people who were taking the tour at the same time as us and we all agreed that it really would be much better if they provided some sort of audio tour, we all would have been willing to pay for it. This could be much better then it actually is.

If you have the patience to stop and read all the plaques on the wall it will help a little in understanding the process. Of course these aren’t much help for the younger children.

When we had gotten our fill of watching the newly minted coins drop into from their baskets into larger containers we went back down one set of escalators to the second floor. Here there are some cases of commemorative coins both past and present. There is also one of the original pieces of machinery from the first mint.

The gift store was a big disappointment. I personally think they are trying to solve the problem of the nation al debt by putting us into debt. Very thing was so over priced. I usually buy Al a pen at any place that we visit. Here the cheapest one was $8, needless to say he doesn’t have a US Mint pen.

I visited the Mint in Washington DC when I was a teen and I remember it fondly, this was a huge disappointment. Come on Federal government you have to be able to do better than this!!!
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From journal Philly: The Good, the Bad, the Outrageous

United States Mint

by ActSpacey

Longmeadow, Massachusetts

January 23, 2006

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Worth a visit especially if you have any interest in coins or coin collecting. You shouldn't spend less than an hour here else you won't have time to get much out of the tour. The tour is self paced - lots of reading. We were late getting to town ...Read more

From journal Veteran's Day Weekend in Philadelphia

United States Mint

by Cheryl

Fort Johnson, New York

July 20, 2000

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In 1792 the US Mint was constructed as the first building built under the Constitution. The Mint offers free self guides tours. Tours cover both present day coin manufacturing as well as the history of the Mint. Learn about all stages of the minting ...Read more

From journal History lessons come naturally in Philadelphia PA

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