2006-S Old San Franscisco Mint Commemorative Dollar | NGC PF69 Ultra Cameo

The United States Mint at San Francisco opened for business in 1854, but it is the second, grander structure completed twenty years later that is most associated with this institution. Designed by famed architect Alfred B. Mullett in the Greek Revival style, it is an imposing structure that captures the might of the federal government. Though minting operations were relocated to a new facility in 1937, this old building housed various government offices as late as 1968. Considered useless at that time, it was faced with demolition until a dedicated group of volunteers rallied to have it re-opened as a museum of coinage and the West in 1973. The earthquake of 1989 prompted a seismic evaluation that exposed the need for an expensive retrofit. The museum was closed five years later and has remained vacant since that time, though the establishment of an even grander museum is now a certainty. 2006 was the centennial of a far greater earthquake that had rocked San Francisco in 1906.