Franklin Peale Peale designed a new machine to cut planchets, or blanks, from metal strips. This machine remained in use, almost unmodified, until 1902. Another of the steam-powered machines Peale had installed on his return was a milling machine, which was used to "upset" the coin—to form a rim around it. A Contamin portrait lathe was imported from France and installed at the Philadelphia Mint in 1837. Prior to this time, all coin dies for American coins had to be made individually, by hand at Philadelphia. Once the lathe was installed, they could be reproduced mechanically by the pantograph-like device. The first
Billy Blanks Billy Blanks Billy Wayne Blanks (born September 1, 1955) is an American fitness guru, martial artist, actor, and the creator of the Tae Bo exercise program. Blanks was born in Erie, Pennsylvania, the fourth of fifteen children. Blanks began his study of the martial arts at the age of eleven, attending Karate and Taekwondo classes. He was born with an anomaly in his hip joints that impaired his movement. The resulting clumsiness caused taunts from Blanks' siblings and led his instructors to believe that he would never accomplish much. Blanks found the answer to these challenges in karate. When he