ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS.
R. M. Patterson to J. C. Spencer.
Mint of the United States,
November 2, 1841.
To the Honorable
J. C. Spencer,
Secretary of War.
Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 28th ult., and am gratified to see the interest which you take in the subject of our American Medals.
The Military Medals of which we have the dies, are now in the course of execution, in compliance with your request. Among them is included the Medal voted, in 1777, to General Gates, of which the dies were given, by the family, through Colonel Burr, to our former chief coiner, Mr. Eckfeldt.
Electrotype copies of the other Medals, properly mounted, could be furnished at two dollars each. We have already the means of making the following: Washington—Boston, 1776; Colonel Howard—Cowpens, 1781; General Greene, 1781: Alliance with France, 1777-1781[113]; Colonel Washington—Cowpens, 1781.
I now propose, with your approbation, to pursue a different course, and to dispense entirely with the services of the die sinker. For this purpose, a medallion likeness of the President must be modeled in wax or clay, on a table of four inches in diameter, and I understand that an artist at Washington, named Chapman, is competent to this work. A plaster cast from this model is used as a pattern for a casting in fine iron, which can be executed by Babbit at Boston, as well as at the celebrated foundries at Berlin. This casting is then placed in an instrument called a portrait lathe (of which we have a very perfect one at the Mint, which I caused to be made at Paris), and reduced fac-similes of it are turned by the lathe, thus preparing for us the dies which we need.
The advantages offered by this mode of operating are manifest. A model made on a large scale in relief, and in plastic material, can hardly fail to be more perfect than a head sunk originally on a die of steel. I accordingly anticipate from this process a more perfect set of dies, than any we have yet made. But it is not an untried experiment which I propose to make. I send you herewith, a medal of Franklin executed by us here, entirely by this process. The original was a medallion likeness of Franklin in burnt clay. All the rest was a purely mechanical operation, (the work being, in fact, done by a steam engine), except a little retouching, and the impression of the letters.
The proposed method presents the advantage of greater economy. The last Indian Medal dies, which were the cheapest we have had made, cost $1,160; Mr. Peale, our chief coiner, is willing to undertake the execution of those for President Tyler, for $800.