Sunshine Minting Co., a Coeur dAlene concern, has added 25 workers recently as it has ramped up to fulfill a five-year contract from the U.S. Mint to produce rounds of silver for collector coins, says Randy Hardy, the Idaho companys general manager.


Under the contract, the North Idaho mint will make planchetsblank disks of metal ready to be stamped with coin designsfor half dollars, quarters, and dimes, says Hardy. The blanks, made of 90 percent silver, will be sent to the U.S. Mint in San Francisco to be struck into coins that will be packaged for collectors. The value of the contract, awarded last year, will depend on the demand for planchets over the five-year period, Hardy says.


The U.S. Mint expects demand for its collector sets to increase in January when it will begin introducing a series of new quarters. Each year for the next 10 years, the U.S. Mint will issue five designs for 25-cent pieces that will feature emblems that represent each of the states. The collector sets will include one of each of the five quarter designs produced that year, and one coin of each of the other denominations.


Gearing up for the expected demand, Sunshine Minting has hired the 25 new employees since the first of September, Hardy says. The company now employs about 60 people and is considering hiring 10 to 12 more people. It plans to produce 100,000 coin blanks a week under the U.S. Mint contract.


The company occupies a 10,000-square-foot building at 7405 Government Way in Coeur dAlene, but needs a larger facility, Hardy says. It is considering erecting a new building next year that will have three times as much space as its current location, he says.


Sunshine Minting is owned by a group of North Idaho investors, who bought the mint in 1993, Hardy says. Before that sale, the mint was known as Sunshine Bullion Co. and was owned by Boise, Idaho-based Sunshine Mining Co. Hardy declines to disclose the businesss annual revenue.


Sunshine Minting also makes pure silver blanks for one-ounce, American Eagle silver bullion coins through another contract with the U.S. Mint. Those planchets are sent to U.S. Mints in Philadelphia, West Point, N.Y., or San Francisco to be struck into the collector coins that feature a soaring American eagle on one side and a female figure known as walking Liberty on the other, Hardy says. Sunshine Minting makes between 100,000 and 200,000 of the one-ounce pure silver blanks each week for those American Eagle coins, he says.


Circulating coins, which are struck primarily at the U.S. Mint in Denver, are no longer made of precious metals, Hardy says. Sunshine Minting doesnt make rounds for circulating coins.


To make planchets, Sunshine Minting melts bars of silver at its plant, Hardy says. It extrudes the molten silver into long strips, which are then rolled out to desired thicknesses. A punch press cuts out coin-sized rounds from the strips.


The blanks are inspected, weighed, and packaged in wooden crates to be shipped. The packed shipping crates, roughly 3 feet square, can weigh as much as 800 pounds, Hardy says.


In addition to supplying the U.S. Mints, Sunshine Minting ships rounds and other products to a growing number of private and government mints in Europe and Asia, as well as other customers, Hardy says.


The company does custom minting to create medallions, coins, or metal bars stamped with original designs, such as corporate logos, portraits, landscape or architectural scenes, or wildlife.


The mint also sells bullion to people who want to invest in precious metals and provides bullion storage for buyers. Hardy says investment silver sales are up as buyers seek hard assets in the face of global economic uncertainty, stock market volatility, and the potential disruption of banking systems by year 2000 computer problems.