Carson Mint Inventory - 1899

[RWB]

If anyone would like a PDF file of the 7-page Carson Mint inventory of equipment and machinery from July 1899 (after the place was officially closed as a mint), send me a PM with your email. The compressed PDF file is about 3.5 meg.

 

The file was made from a poor carbon copy, so it is not "pretty," but it's readable.

 

It's too long to post here.

[PocketArt]

PM sent- thanks!

 

Rich

[RWB]

On its way to you via electronic carrier pigeon.

[dragon]

me too, thanks!

[RWB]

Copies sent to all who have requested it. (I do not keep or distribute your email addresses.)

[dragon]

Interesting reading.......thanks RWB!

[RWB]

You're welcome.....They put a value on just about everything except the tobacco juice in the spittoon!

[PocketArt]

I would have never guessed that a spittoon would of formally been called a "cuspidor." I had to look up what a cuspidor was as it was on this list and I didn't have a clue! I wonder if the "carpet" listed in the inventory is just what we would know as a rug?

 

Also, did the mints have a cartouche, or, a symbol stamped on some of the items listed on inventory to identify their provenance?

 

Very interesting Roger,

 

Thanks!

 

 

[RWB]

The "carpets" were what would now be called area rugs, except in the room(s) used by the Adjusters. Those were wall-to-wall and even went up the walls a little. Their purpose was not decorative or sound absorbing, but as gold and silver catchers. Any filings that missed the leather lined collection drawers were trapped by the finely woven carpet. This was burned once or twice a year to recover the precious metal. At a large mint, such as Philadelphia, this amounted to several thousand dollars a year.

 

Moveable items had paper stickers on them with the office name and usually an inventory number. (Today furniture has bar code stickers on it.)

[PocketArt]

I've read in your book, "From Mine to Mint," that even the workmen who handled gold and silver bars at various mints, along with women adjusters and selectors who wore gloves and handled blanks, planchets and coins had their gloves burned in a closed furnace at the end of each week to recover gold particles. I paraphrased this paragraph from- pg. 45.

 

I understood gold as being a soft metal but not to the extent that there would be this much metal loss through the production process to warrant burning gloves each week to reclaim gold. The finger tips of those gloves must of looked as if they were gilded by end of week!

 

I wonder if mint employees who worked in these areas where necessary had shoes supplied by the mint, kept at the mint, and perhaps other clothing that was periodically burned?

 

Good heavens; how about those employees that had over 30 years service...should I ask?

 

 

[RWB]

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