Act of September 26, 1890 - Where can I find a version of this Act?

[Prethen]

I've searched in the Century of Lawmaking site, but it only goes up to 1875. There are allusions all over the Net to the Act, but not the Act itself. You would think this would be simple to find now!

 

Also, if someone can point me to the text of the Specie Resumption Act of January 14, 1875, I'd be really appreciative (can't find the document on the above site either...maybe my searching skills suck!).

[Conder101]

The problem is that the printing of the Revised Statutes changed years back and the acts passed after 1875 are not available on-line as far as I know until the recent era when they can be found through Thomas.gov. for the acts passed between the two you actually have to go to a law library and search the printed books.

 

The Act of September 26th 1890 is printed though in Coinage laws of the United States 1792 - 1894 compiled by David Ganz.

 

There are actually two different Acts of Sept 26th 1890. One deals with the redesign of the coinage every 25 years, the other with the abolishion of the three cent, gold dollar and three dollar gold.

 

Text of the acts will follow in my next post.

 

 

[Prethen]

Do you have the Ganz text? The information I need is for the latter of the two Acts you noted. When they abolished the 3CN/$3 Gold....did they just kill minting them or were they demonitized also?

 

I'd love to get the exact text, but if you can give me that, if you wouldn't mind please give me a full bibliographic reference which I can use for the article submission (publication full name, author and/or publisher, publication date, page numbers).

 

THANKS!!!

[Conder101]

Act of Sept 26th 1890

To amend section thirty five hundred and ten of the Rvised Statutes of the United States, and to provide for new designs of authorized devices of Unites States coins.

 

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That section thirty five hundred and ten of the Revised Statutes of the United States be, and the same hereby, amended so as to read as follows:

 

"Sec 3510. The engraver shall prepare from the original dies already authorized all the working dies required for use in the coinage of the several mints, and, when new coins, emblems, devices, legends, or design are authorized, shall, if required by the Director of the Mint, prepare the devices, models, hubs, or original dies for the same. The Director of the Mint shall have power, with the approval of the Secretary of the treasury, to cause new designs or models of authorized emblems or devices to be prepared and adopted in the same manner as when new coins or devices are authorized. But no change in the design or die of any coin shall be made oftener than once in twenty-five years from and including the year of the first adoption of the design, model, die, or hub for the same coin: Provided, that no change is made in the diameter of any coin: And provided further, That nothing in this section shall prevent the adoption of new designs or models for devices or emblems already authorized for the standard silver dollar and the five-cent nickel piece as soon as practicable after the passage of this act. But the Director of the Mint shall nevertheless have power, with the approval of the Secretary of the Treasury, to engage temporarily for this purpose the services of one or more artists, distingushed in their respective departments of art, who shall be paid for such services from the contingent appropriation for the mint of Philadelphia.

 

 

 

Act of Sept 26th 1890

An act to discontinue the coinage of the three-dollar and one-doll gold pieces and the three-cent piece.

 

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of representative of the United Statesof America in Congress assembled, That from and after the passage of this act the coinage of the three-dollar gold piece, the one-dollar gold piece, and the three-cent nickel piece be, and the same is hereby, prohibited, and the pieces named shall not be struck or issued by the Mint of the United States.

 

Sec 2 That as fast as the said coins shall be paid into the Treasuryof the United States they shall be withdrawn from circulation and be recoined into other denominations of coins.

 

Sec 3 That all laws and parts of laws in conflict with this act are hereby repealed.

[Conder101]

Text was from page 73 of

 

Coinage Laws of the United States 1792 - 1894

 

Adapted from the volume by the same name, prepared under the direction of the Committee on Finance of the United States Senate, printed in Washington 1894.

 

My copy was published by Bowers and Merena Galleries Inc Box 1224 Wolfeboro NH 03894 (The address is no longer valid)

 

ISBN 0-943161-27-4

 

Published in 1990

 

The second Act appears in the printed copy of the Statutes at Large of the United States as Chapter 945 26 Stat 485 (On page 485 of the 26th volume)

 

And I was wrong, Ganz didn't compile them, he wrote the forward to the book.

 

No the coins were not demonitized. The only US coin that was ever demonitized was the Trade dollar and it got it's legal tender status back in 1933.

[Prethen]

After I wrote my question about demonetization, I realized that was a dumb question. Where the spirit of that question was coming from is that I read from multiple sources where a coin is no longer minted/abolished and the author goes on to mention that it becomes legal tender by the Coin Act of 1965. I just have to scratch my head if/when the author is already referring to a coin that even had limited legal tender status (such as the 2-cent piece).

 

Thank you so much Conder for your information. I might have to seek out a copy of that book now!

[DC Dawg]

You can find the complete text in a Microsoft Word document at:

 

http://www.usmint.gov/historianscorner/?action=DocDL&doc=legKen1890.doc

[Prethen]

Scott, I actually did find this myself, but I wasn't convinced that maybe I wasn't missing more of the text since it was completely isolated from it's original context. Usually these Acts have much more to them and I was looking for something like I was finding on that Library of Congress site. Regardless, I did find (with the help of someone else on this board!) the entire set of coinage acts available in online book form from 1792-1894. That was awesome.

 

Thanks again!