The Parental Visit: Denver Mint Tour

My parents whirled through my neck of the woods this week during a roughly 36 hour layover in Denver. The one full day that I had with them was spent taking a tour of the US Mint, checking out the 16th Street Mall in downtown Denver, perusing the Bass Pro Shop east of Denver and catching up over dinner with us and my uncle (who just happened to be in town for the week as well). I failed to take any photos but I scavenged some from the interweb of the Denver Mint. The tour is too short to fully absorb everything, but still fascinating and very much worth the price tag of $0. You just have to make reservations in advance, that's all. Here are some pictures of the tour:

The Denver Mint was built in 1897. It's been expanded on since then, but this photo shows the original building. The original building has been left intact.



There are old fashioned scales all over the place on the tour route.



These are the coils of metal sheets from which pennies are punched during production.

It's not a guarantee that any coins will be in production during one's tour. We were lucky in that pennies were being produced during our tour.

At the end of the tour there is a display that shows what roughly 2 million dollars worth of gold looks like these days. A mere three bars of gold bullion.