Thimble, a metallic cap or sheath used to protect the end of the finger in sewing. Seamstresses use a thimble having a rounded end with numerous small pits or indentations. Those used by tailors are open at the end. The manufacture of timbles is very simple. Coin silver is mostly used, generally silver dollars, which are melted, and cast into solid ingots. These are rolled into the required thickness, and cut by a stamp into disks of any required size. A solid metal bar the size of the inside of the intended thimble, moved by powerful machinery up and down in a bottomless mold of the size of the outside of the thimble, bends the circular disks into the thimble shape as fast as they can be placed under the descending bar. The work of brightening, polishing, and decorating is done on a lathe.
Entry from Everybody's Cyclopedia, 1912.