THE U.S. MINT AND COINAGE

Curator of the Chase Manhattan Bank Money Museum, Don Taxay has written what Gilroy Roberts, Chief Engraver of the U.S. Mint from 1948 to 1965, terms ""without doubt... the most complete and authoritative treatise on the subject ever written."" It takes up the history of American coinage from 1776, when the first coins were minted to help finance the Revolution by enlisting the loyalty of private resources and back up paper currency to 1965, when the standard silver coin has been relegated to history and replaced by laminated base metal issues in consideration of the growing silver shortage, the demands of private industry and the requirements of modern vending machines. Eighty pages of plates show the coins of the mint, trial pieces, dies, accepted and discarded designs for coins, etc.