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Message:: [QUOTE="Conder101, post: 181364, member: 66"]Yes it's weak.  They would still need the assayer for assaying the silver and creating the alloy mix, and the coiner would still be responsible for the actions of the workmen so I would think that the bonds would still be needed. And if this was good enough to get around the bond problem, why would the mint not have stayed in operation striking small silver coins?  If they could do it for the 1792 half disme, why did they then have to wait until 1794  and the bonds were paid before they struck any other silver?  Possibly they got in trouble for striking the 1792 half dismes illegally? No I think the half dismes were simply a political expediency.  Washington had promised the start of the mint in his last state of the union address.  After seven months it looked like they still weren't going to make it so they struck off the half dismes as a personal favor to the president and then they struck nothing else for the rest of the year.  Yet at Washington's next state of the union address five months later he trots out the "small coinage of half dismes because of the want of small coinage" to show he kept his promise from the previous year even though nothing else had been struck since the small coinage done for him personally.  Politics pure and simple.[/QUOTE]