Today I was told that the first mint workers of the US mint were required to work in the nude in order to prevent theft of coins. Is there any actual truth to this?

by historiagrephour
Ploofy_4

Some quick research and I am lead to believe this is not the case. There is no documentation of this from anything that I've found. There is evidence that the mint kept a careful account of how many coins it minted, 11,178 in its first issue. That accounting alone would make it hard to steal.

I'm going to have to give a firm "no" citing a distinct lack of evidence of what would probably be a highly publicized factoid.

AU_is_better

The first us mint 'directors' were required to post a large bond (something to the order of $10,000 in gold in the 1790's) which was detrimental to actually finding someone who wanted the job. congress evetually lowered the bond amount, but it does indicate a fear of theft, unauthorized debasement (as happened with the spanish colonial mints) and other shennagins. i haven't seen anything to be able to confirm or deny nudity, but it sounds dubious.

Source: The Red Book of US Coins. I'm on mobile, so if you'd like i can dig it out and give their sources as well.