Well guys I got to check off something I've wanted to do for a long time. Went through the Denver mint. They have a serious security check in process but once in and you get going, it's a 45 min, free tour. Got to see the new dimes and quarters being made down below us. No photograpy allowed. Can't even have phones on. They had a tour guide and security guards keeping an eye on everybody. Learned a lot. Saw the room where they were assembling circulated mint sets. There's cubes with machines inside glass. Somebody dumps a bag of the coins in the side. Packaging is somewhere in it. There's robot arms inside the enclosed cubes that then pick up the coins with a suction cup and plop them in the packaging. You can only see it from about 40 ft away behind glass. Exit is through the old mint building which is beautiful marble from Vermont with high ceilings and custom made 300 lb chandaliers with Tiffany glass. 24k gold guilded ceilings, amazing architecture and art. They have the place locked down tight. It's not only a coining facility but one of several bullion depositories in the country. Went to gift shop at the end and saw everything they had for sale. Noticed they had 2026 silver proof set out. As someone who already owns several with what I would consider "not that great" Lincoln cents, I asked to see a set. They're sold out online but the gift shop had about a hundred boxes of them available I'd estimate. First one I checked out at the counter was a perfect Lincoln so I bought it. I think the silver proof sets have bad batches of Lincolns or maybe it depends on where they got shipped to and what they got exposed to. I dont know. The ones I ordered online came from Texas. Just thought I'd share. The gift shop you can walk in right off the street. Don't have to do a tour to stop by if you didn't have one reserved. Parked in a public parking garage for $15. That ticket was good until 11:30 p.m. Walked 5 minutes to get to the entrance. City is interesting. Seemed clean. Not that many people on the streets walking around. Some cities stink in the summer but Denver does not. At least not where I was. Very cool architecture downtown. Quite easy to get in and out of compared to other locations I've been. Strong police presence. Only saw one homeless encampment in the middle of everything. Was an elaborate setup.
I recommend everyone who is into Numismatics to visit a US Mint. I've been to the Philadelphia US Mint and experienced the same thing with security. Here is my old thread https://www.cointalk.com/threads/us-mint-tour-souvenir-fail.321821/#post-3162294
