BRANDT MENTIONED IN BOOK

Friday, August 1, 2008 10:44 PM CDT

In recent weeks we received a copy of an interesting and unusual book which contains a number of references to the old Brandt Automatic Cashier Company, one of Watertown's premiere businesses which is today known as De La Rue Cash Systems and is located on South Twelfth Street.

The business for many years was owned by the Brandt-Quirk families in Watertown and through the families and the employees much has been given to the Watertown community in many ways.

The book is titled “Renaissance of American Coinage, 1916-1921” and it was written by Roger W. Burdette.

The book traces the complete redesign of America's coins by the United States Mint.

It's a detailed accounting of the origin, creation and ultimately the production of these coins starting back in 1916. In this era all of the coins, from the Peace Dollar down to the nickel were redesigned.

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So, where does Brandt Automatic Cashier Company come in? Well, back in that era the company was manufacturing thousands of its trademark coin counting, sorting and wrapping equipment and it was known throughout the country for its quality work.

These new coin designs simply had to work well in the Brandt machines because they were used throughout the country. Any tampering with coins that would render the Brandt equipment ineffective could be a disastrous situation, from incorrect counting to jammed and broken machines.

Brandt was one of only three companies in the country that was given some of the newly designed coins for test purposes. The coins had not gone into full production but rather just a few were minted to determine if they would work well in equipment like Brandt manufactured and in such equipment as pay telephones.

One of the characteristics of the Brandt machines was their uncanny ability to detect counterfeit coins in most instances. But, the machines needed coins of uniform weight and diameter to be effective. Badly worn and bent coins would be rejected and the regular ones would go through.

The book detailed the unusual problems in connection with the redesign of the dime but ultimately the design and minting issues were resolved. After many trials and minute changes, Brandt officials wrote to the mint, saying, “We appreciate that these dimes now with us are for the writer's personal use, and they test satisfactorily as to size in the Brandt Automatic Cashier and our system of Coin Storage Trays.”

Throughout the book there are mentions to the close cooperative efforts of the Brandt officials to ensure that the new coins would indeed work in all areas of U.S. commerce.

Burdette wrote to us and said he noticed an article by Steve Sharp of our news staff which chronicled the decision that the Edward J. Brandt House in Watertown was being placed on the National Register of Historic Places.

That led him to decide to write about his book. He said, “Brandt was a leading Watertown businessman and founder of the Brandt Cashier Company, a major industry in Watertown in the early 20th century. What you might not be aware of is that Mr. Brandt's company played an important national role in evaluating the new coinage design of the United States in 1916, and determining their suitability for coin-operated devices. While researching historical documents for my book I contacted Brandt, Inc., and obtained a copy of the biography, ‘Edward J. Brandt, Inventor,' by former company vice president Charles J. Wallman. Neither Mr. Wallman's book mentions, nor company officials knew, of the company's connection with the U.S. Mint. I was told that most company records before 1920 had been destroyed.”

The book is over 300 pages in length, is hard cover and is filled with photos of the various coin designs. It's an interesting one for people who are familiar with the Brandt business, coin collectors and the like. We enjoyed paging through it. It's an unusual topic, but with the strong ties to Watertown it's worth a look.

HALFWAY FOR RIVERFEST

By the time you read through today's column, Riverfest will be at the halfway point. We hope lots of people are out on the grounds enjoying all that's available to them.

This year is the 22nd in a row, and it is carrying the largest budget in history. Musical acts have gotten more expensive because the cost of transportation has ballooned out of control. That is reflected in those higher costs.

And, that's exactly why we want to encourage everyone who attends the festival to take a few minutes and purchase a few raffle tickets. The primary reason for purchasing them should be to help with the festival's overhead. Sure, it would be nice to have your name called for one of the prizes, but we hope the real motivation is to help with the festival's overhead.

Remember, Riverfest is a free festival. That's a sharp contrast to nearly every other major festival in the area where admission fees are charged and often there's a separate fee that covers the cost of attending the musical entertainment.

At Watertown Riverfest we rely on the profits from food and beverage sales and lesser amounts from our share of carnival/midway receipts, the craft fair, bean bag tournament and other areas.

But once enough raffle tickets are sold and the prizes are covered, every ticket sold represents a dollar of profit.

Most of our readers will recall the festival has been in the red by a bit the last couple of years, due primarily because of some rainy weather. That's why this year we'd really like to see a banner year in the raffle area.

It's the best way to support the festival.

We'll see you at Riverside Park this weekend.

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