ՔԻՉ ԱՌԱՋ․ՍԱՐԱՍԱՓԵԼԻ ԲԱՑԱՀԱՅՏՈՒՄ․Սաշիկն ու Քոչարյանը միասին․․․

The act authorizing the gold dollar and double eagle precipitated conflict at the Philadelphia Mint. There the officers, including Chief Coiner Franklin Peale, were mostly the friends and relations of Director Patterson. The outsider in their midst was Chief Engraver[a] James B. Longacre,[13] successor to Gobrecht (who had died in 1844). A former copper-plate engraver, Longacre had been appointed through the political influence of South Carolina Senator John C. Calhoun.[14] Patterson despised Calhoun, and Longacre became a loner at the mint. Most of Peale’s formal duties were performed by his predecessor, Adam Eckfeldt, who continued to do the work of chief coiner despite his retirement.[15] Peale spent the resulting free time running a private medal business taking commissions from the public and using the government’s facilities,[14] including its Contamin portrait lathe. This machine, used in Peale’s medal work, was needed to reduce models of new designs to coin-sized reductions from which working dies could be made.[16] So long as no new coin designs were needed, dies could be reproduced mechanically, without using the Contamin device.[17] Although it belonged to his department, Longacre did not use the Contamin lathe much until Congress ordered that the two new coins be struck.[18]

When Longacre began work on the two new coins in early 1849, he had no assistants. He completed work on the gold dollar first, anxious to show that he could create a coin design.[18] In May, he requested that Patterson hire another engraver to assist him. The director declined, willing only to have engraving work contracted out. This was unsatisfactory to Longacre, who was responsible under the law for the proper execution of coinage dies, and who could not supervise outside work.[18]