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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;CBJesse, post: 2037261, member: 40089&quot;]I can&#039;t offer much in the way of information regarding current coinage struck on modern presses, or 19th century coinage struck on steam presses, but your question immediately reminded me of an fascinating quote in Don Taxay&#039;s US Mint and Coinage (pg. 98). It provides a first hand account of the striking of early large cents at the first Philadelphia mint (approximately 1812), which directly relates to your question.</p><p><br /></p><p>The writer is George Escol Sellers, who was apparently 4 years old at the time the event took place. What excellent memory! Perhaps his older brother later described it to him in greater detail than he might have recalled. Here is the quote:</p><p><br /></p><p>&quot;One day in the charge of my elder brother I stood on tip-toe with my nose resting on the iron bar placed across the open window of the coining room to keep out intruders, watching the men swing the levers of the fly press; it must have been about noon, for Mr. Eckfeldt came into the room, watch in hand, and gave the signal to the men who stopped work. Seeing me peering over the bar, he took me by the arms and lifted me over it. Setting me down by the coining press he asked me if I did not want to make a cent, at the same time stopping the men who had put on their jackets to leave the room. <b>He put a blank planchet into my hand, showed me how to drop it in, and where to place my hand to catch it as it came out; the lever and weights were swung, and I caught the penny as we boys called cents, but at once dropped it. Mr. Eckfeldt laughed and asked me why I dropped it? Because it was hot and I feared it would burn me; he picked it up and handed it to me, then certainly not hot enough to burn; he asked if it was not cold when he gave it to me to drop into the press; he then told me I must keep the cent until I learned what made it hot; then I might, if I liked, spend it for candy.&quot;</b></p><p><br /></p><p>I bold-faced the text which pertained to the heat of the coin after being struck. It seems from this account, that even during the usage of screw presses, that coins came off the dies at least mildly hot.</p><p><br /></p><p>For more see Sellers book: Early Engineering Reminiscences 1815-40.</p><p><br /></p><p>Jesse[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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