PREV ARTICLE NEXT ARTICLE FULL ISSUE PREV FULL ISSUE

V12 2009 INDEX E-SYLUM ARCHIVE

The E-Sylum: Volume 12, Number 10, March 8, 2009, Article 8

MERCANTI NAMED 12TH CHIEF ENGRAVER OF THE U.S. MINT

Scott Barman's February 28th Coin Collector's Blog picked up on a welcome piece of information I'd missed among the U.S. Mint's recent announcements. -Editor

Buried within the hype of the Ultra High Relief Saint Gaudens Double Eagle and all of the other news of the day was that during the ceremony for the opening of the UHR exhibit at the Philadelphia Mint was the announcement that John Mercanti would be the 12th Chief Engraver of the US Mint.

Mercanti, who was previously the “Supervisory Design and Master Tooling Development Specialist,” has been working for the US Mint since 1974 and has been responsible for the design of some of the Mint’s most spectacular coins of the last 35 years. Mercanti worked under Chief Engravers Frank Gasparro and Elizabeth Jones.

After Jones retired in 1990, the US Mint abolished the position of Chief Engraver. After 19 years, Director Edmund C. Moy has decided to bring back the position and offer the job to the Mint’s most experienced and accomplished engraver. Mercanti deserves the honor to join this elite group:

Robert Scot 1793-1823
William Kneass 1824-1840
Christian Gobrecht 1835-1844
James Barton Longacre 1844-1869
William Barber 1869-1879
Charles Edward Barber 1879-1917
George T. Morgan 1917-1925
John R. (Ray) Sinnock 1925-1947
Gilroy Roberts 1948-1964
Frank Gasparro 1965-1981
Elizabeth Jones 1981-1990
John M. Mercanti 2009-present

Congratulations to John Mercanti on a well-deserved (if long overdue) honor, and thanks to Scott for passing the news along.

I later learned from someone in the audience at the event that the news came as a surprise to Mercanti; Moy stated that the approval came from The White House to remedy this longstanding slight. -Editor

To read the original blog post, see: Mercanti Named 12th Chief Engraver (coinsblog.blogspot.com/2009/02/mercanti-named-12th-chief-engraver.html)

Wayne Homren, Editor

The Numismatic Bibliomania Society is a non-profit organization promoting numismatic literature. See our web site at coinbooks.org.

To submit items for publication in The E-Sylum, write to the Editor at this address: whomren@gmail.com

To subscribe go to: https://my.binhost.com/lists/listinfo/esylum

PREV ARTICLE NEXT ARTICLE FULL ISSUE PREV FULL ISSUE

V12 2009 INDEX E-SYLUM ARCHIVE