US Mint historical questions 1 1

[RWB]

Members who have questions about US Mint operations, practices, production, or coinage details are free to post them to this thread. I will then search my database in hopes of finding answers. This is not a perfect arrangement and my database is very far from complete. However, it contains a lot of information from Mint, Library of Congress, State and local archives and personal files that are not available elsewhere. A response might point you to a published reference or present examples of unpublished material. Have fun and enjoy the hobby and challenge of coin collecting.

(NOTE: Only about a quarter of my materials are in digital format and can be searched electronically. Other documents are in indexed paper files or JPG images of manuscript. Answers will be the best I can locate, but not necessarily definitive. Use the "coin wrapper" thread as an example of Q/A in this format.)

[numisport]

I am asking again for info on die summaries and related numbers for 1950 -1964 proofs especially '50 -'55 dates. I think you said before there wasn't good record keeping back then but I like the die summary for each date in your '36 to '42 book.

[Zebo]

1. Thanks for offering Roger - this should prove to be an interesting and worthwhile thread.

[RWB]

3 hours ago, numisport said:

I am asking again for info on die summaries and related numbers for 1950 -1964 proofs especially '50 -'55 dates. I think you said before there wasn't good record keeping back then but I like the die summary for each date in your '36 to '42 book.

I have not seen the die records you are looking for and do not know if they exist. Here are extracts from the NARA Philadelphia finding aids:

666      Dies Destroyed, Retained & Number of Pieces Struck 1956-December 31, 1961,          Philadelphia Mint            6 in.

Lists of Dies (domestic and foreign) destroyed and retained by the Mint in Philadelphia. The lists cover a three month period. The lists specify the quantities of each die, obverse and reverse, and their denominations. Arranged in reverse chronological order.

There are no references to proof coin dies and all references to proof coins end with 1916. There are other dies lists but they are all for Denver Mint.

This is all I have at present. Sorry.

Edited October 27, 2019 by RWB

[RWB]

The only reason 1936-42 proof die and production information survived is serendipitous selection: mere chance. All of the information was in two small pocket notebooks that had been kept by the Medal Clerk handling proof coin production. This was kept separate from medal work. I published the data in part to preserve it in case the originals were lost or damaged.

[RWB]

The following question was asked by collector “topstuf”:

“Where did the first San Francisco silver come from?”

The earliest silver issues for the San Francisco Mint were made from melted Spanish/Mexican silver coins and from refining native California (and western North American) gold. Proportions were approximately equal.

California gold was about 0.880 fine (depending on source) and most of the natural alloy was silver. The balance was mostly copper, platinum, iridium, and osmium. Part of the recovered silver was used in alloying gold coins and as business increased at the Mint, enough was available to produce silver coins. These coins were in high demand locally. (The San Francisco Mint was the only government mint and refinery in North America west of the Mississippi River. Customers came from Canada and Mexico as well as the US territories.)

See the book From Mine to Mint for details of native gold fineness, amalgamating and refining gold and silver, etc.

 

Edited November 4, 2019 by RWB
Goofy formatting

[Just Bob]

On 10/27/2019 at 12:03 PM, RWB said:

Members who have questions about US Mint operations, practices, production, or coinage details are free to post them to this thread. I will then search my database in hopes of finding answers. This is not a perfect arrangement and my database is very far from complete. However, it contains a lot of information from Mint, Library of Congress, State and local archives and personal files that are not available elsewhere. A response might point you to a published reference or present examples of unpublished material. Have fun and enjoy the hobby and challenge of coin collecting.

(NOTE: Only about a quarter of my materials are in digital format and can be searched electronically. Other documents are in indexed paper files or JPG images of manuscript. Answers will be the best I can locate, but not necessarily definitive. Use the "coin wrapper" thread as an example of Q/A in this format.)

An interesting topic came up in another thread, and I was wondering if you knew the percentage of original coin designs that were still in existence, including drawings and galvanos. (galvani?)

[RWB]

Just Bob,

My guess is that approximately 75+% of US Coin designs exist in drawing, model, cast and electrotype ('galvano') form beginning with the Seated Liberty design of 1835-36. For US commemorative coins, the percentage is probably closer to 95% or greater.

The materials are scattered among NARA, Library of Congress, Philadelphia Mint, Library Company of Philadelphia/Pennsylvania Historical Society, private collections and descendant family holdings. The materials at the Philadelphia Mint were supposed to be cataloged and photographed nearly a decade ago, but so far almost nothing has been publicly presented.

[GoldFinger1969]

RWB, what constituted an "official release date" for coins in the 1920's and 1930's, when the telephone got more widespread ?  Did someone at the Mint or Treasury issue an "all-clear" message that let them know when coins could be released ?   Particularly interested in Peace Dollars and Double Eagles. 

They're minting hundreds of thousands...millions of coins....did they wait until a target number was reached and someone then OK'd them for release...it doesn't appear they were OK to release DURING the production of the stockpiles, right ?

Edited March 29, 2020 by GoldFinger1969

[RWB]

Simple question with a complicated answer.

Most regular issue coins had no specific date of first issue. (“Issue” being shipped out of a mint to a sub-Treasury, or after 1921 from a Federal Reserve Bank.) They might be held for months or issued immediately depending on orders from the Treasurer of the U.S., and issuance was usually demand  related.

New designs or denominations typically had a planned “pubic release” date. The idea was to build a stockpile to supply initial demand and then make the coins publicly available at the same time in large cities. Usually, these events will be documented in newspapers and we can thus presume this was the “official issue date.” Thus, we can assign Tuesday January 4, 1892 as the issue date for Charles Barber’s new silver coins since that is the date on which the Mint Director publicly made the first distribution in Washington, D.C.

In some situations, new coins were deliberately withheld until permission was given by the Treasurer to issue them. This was the case with double eagles from San Francisco and Denver in the 1920s.  For these coins, the “official issue date” was the date on which the first coin passed from the mint to the public – even if it was only one coin. These release dates can be identified by examining the Cashier’s Daily Statements which show coins received from the Coiner and  issued by the Cashier. (See Saint-Gaudens Double Eagles for details.)

For Peace dollars dated 1921 there was a public issue date. This occurred after bags of coins were distributed to large city banks. (See a Guide Book for Peace Dollars for details.)

Let me know if this is not specific enough.

Edited March 29, 2020 by RWB

[GoldFinger1969]

10 hours ago, RWB said:

Simple question with a complicated answer.....Let me know if this is not specific enough.

I think your simple question with a complicated answer would NORMALLY be good enough, Roger.  But with all the downtime I/we have right now, I finally got to finishing/reading Illegal Tender which was the inspiration for my question and I kind of feel like I'm in a tug of war between you and David Tripp. 

I'll use the 1933 DE's not because I want to rehash that whole debate but because it does illustrate what I am referencing on DE's in general.  You had 3 production runs of the 1933 DE:  March, April, and May.  Forget the April Executive Order -- doesn't matter here for my purposes.  Let's also simplify things and say that a total of 450,000 DE's were minted, 150,000 in each month.  Again, just for simplicity purposes (exact numbers don't matter here, this isn't the trial  ).

Now....assuming history was changed and those 1933 DE's hit the public, banks, and European overseas just like their earlier brethren.....would they have been OK'd only when the entire 450,000 run was struck and minted ?

Or when the 1st batch of 150,000 was done in mid-March ?

Or even earlier, when you had a few hundred or a few thousand of the mid-March run ready, assuming you had the public asking the CSR at the cashier windows "Do you have the new 1933 DEs available yet ?"

I remember all the debate about "official release" dates during the trial and that's what I'm trying to pin down.  The 3 runs of minting give us multiple opportunities to release them (at the end of each run, at the end of the final run, or early in the runs for any of the 3 minting periods).  This is what Tripp never gets into, IMO, and what the cashier daily statments and that accountant (Greisser ?) never talked about.

In fairness, I don't know if you did, either.  Neither side in that case said that standard procedure was to release DEs as soon as the entire run was minted....or after each batch (of 150,000 in our example)....or as soon as a few hundred/thousand were minted in the 1st batch.  Whatever.

That's what I am trying to pin down.

And whenever that "OK to release them" order was given...when the bags left to go to Federal Reserve Banks or commercial banks...or when a few dozen/hundred coins went up to the customer service desk for folks who wanted a new 1933 DE or for those who took a Mint tour and wanted a soverneir....was this "OK to release" order in print somewhere.....OR....did the Director or Superintendent of the (Philly) Mint give the OK order or was it the Cashier......the assayer, who made sure that whole batches weren't "defective....or maybe someone higher, like the Treasury Secretary in Washington ?

Sorry to be so long-winded, and maybe there isn't a specific answer to this question which is why you and Tripp's book haven't addressed it.  Maybe this wasn't a formal procedure, maybe they just "winged it."  I don't know.

I'm just trying to ascertain, at least for gold coins in general and Saints specifically, who gave the final order to let them leave the Philly Mint into the hands of the public and banks ?

Edited March 30, 2020 by GoldFinger1969

[RWB]

RE: Question. I’ll try to break down the response a little better this time.

I think your simple question with a complicated answer would NORMALLY be good enough, Roger.  But with all the downtime I/we have right now, I finally got to finishing/reading Illegal Tender which was the inspiration for my question and I kind of feel like I'm in a tug of war between you and David Tripp. 

1—Mr. Tripp’s book is a work of fiction based on incomplete information and selective recognition. That’s not an indictment; it’s simply a fact.

I'll use the 1933 DE's not because I want to rehash that whole debate but because it does illustrate what I am referencing on DE's in general.  You had 3 production runs of the 1933 DE:  March, April, and May.  Forget the April Executive Order -- doesn't matter here for my purposes.  Let's also simplify things and say that a total of 450,000 DE's were minted, 150,000 in each month.  Again, just for simplicity purposes (exact numbers don't matter here, this isn't the trial  ).

Now....assuming history was changed and those 1933 DE's hit the public, banks, and European overseas just like their earlier brethren.....would they have been OK'd only when the entire 450,000 run was struck and minted ?

Or when the 1st batch of 150,000 was done in mid-March ?

Or even earlier, when you had a few hundred or a few thousand of the mid-March run ready, assuming you had the public asking the CSR at the cashier windows "Do you have the new 1933 DEs available yet ?"

I remember all the debate about "official release" dates during the trial and that's what I'm trying to pin down.  The 3 runs of minting give us multiple opportunities to release them (at the end of each run, at the end of the final run, or early in the runs for any of the 3 minting periods).  This is what Tripp never gets into, IMO, and what the cashier daily statments and that accountant (Greisser ?) never talked about.

In fairness, I don't know if you did, either.  Neither side in that case said that standard procedure was to release DEs as soon as the entire run was minted....or after each batch (of 150,000 in our example)....or as soon as a few hundred/thousand were minted in the 1st batch.  Whatever.

That's what I am trying to pin down.

2—Throughout the 1920s and 30s gold coins were issued only on orders from the Treasurer of the U.S.  (“Issued” meaning allowed to leave a mint on official instructions.) The Cashier’s Daily Statements are specific about gold leaving a mint “on Treasurer’s Orders.” There was no discretion permitted to the Superintendents. They could not issue/release any of the coins on their own authority.

There are many examples of double eagles being officially issued during this time period including coins sold by the Treasurer to collectors. Quantities were small, but not insignificant. (Again, I suggest you read the Saint-Gaudens Double Eagle book for details, dates and names of coin purchasers.)

All gold coins were treated the same. 1933 double eagles stand out as the only gold denomination for which no order to issue the coins exists. (Extant records have gaps – and that maintains uncertainty.) Normal business processes required samples to be sent to HQ for Special Assay and other samples kept for the Annual Assay Commission. These were done as well as the internal sampling by the Coiner (Bartholomew). All coins were accounted for. No 1933 DE were ever in the control of the Federal reserve or any bank.

And whenever that "OK to release them" order was given...when the bags left to go to Federal Reserve Banks or commercial banks...or when a few dozen/hundred coins went up to the customer service desk for folks who wanted a new 1933 DE or for those who took a Mint tour and wanted a soverneir....was this "OK to release" order in print somewhere.....OR....did the Director or Superintendent of the (Philly) Mint give the OK order or was it the Cashier......the assayer, who made sure that whole batches weren't "defective....or maybe someone higher, like the Treasury Secretary in Washington ?

Sorry to be so long-winded, and maybe there isn't a specific answer to this question which is why you and Tripp's book haven't addressed it.  Maybe this wasn't a formal procedure, maybe they just "winged it."  I don't know.

I'm just trying to ascertain, at least for gold coins in general and Saints specifically, who gave the final order to let them leave the Philly Mint into the hands of the public and banks ?

3—We thus have a conundrum. There were no official issue orders from the Treasurer. All 1933 DE were accounted for in 1933 and through melting in 1937. But, at least 19 1933 DE are known to have left the Philadelphia Mint (plus the two sold to the Smithsonian in 1934). What happened?

Clearly, with nothing missing and no report of any missing DE in 1933 or later, there could have been no theft. That is what the US Mint’s records tell us. So – how did the coins leave the Mint? Several possibilities were discussed in articles I wrote for Coin World in August 2010.

But the bottom line is that we don’t know when, how, why, or by whom the extant 1933 DE left the Mint. We know from Mint records that no coins or gold was missing, no USSS reports were filed, no investigations occurred…so they were not stolen. (During the trial, I was not permitted by the Court to explain any of this or anything else relating to the details and inconsistencies. The Appeals Court did not act on this, but only on a narrow procedural premise.)

 

Edited March 30, 2020 by RWB

[RWB]

PS: Following approval of the Act of January 30, 1934 ("Gold Act") all US gold coins lost their legal tender status - they were all anonymous lumps of metal. Thus all DE, including 1933 held for the Assay Commission or in Mint vaults, were bullion and subject to a completely different set of rules than had applied to coins issued for circulation.

[GoldFinger1969]

Thanks Roger...that clears it up.  Just to be clear.....when you say "Treasurer" you don't mean the Treasury Secretary, you mean the Treasurer of the United States (person who signs on the left side of our currency), right ?

BTW, I'm getting the Red Saint-Gaudens Morse-Duckor book that you apparently edit.  On another site I was asking about the difference between that book and the Blue Morse Coinage book that came out like a decade or more ago.  Figured the Red book probably had more up-to-date information but was afraid maybe they dropped alot of the photos from the Blue Morse book.  They're not cheap so I hate to buy both. I'll get the Red one, I see it on Heritage.

Edited March 30, 2020 by GoldFinger1969

[RWB]

"Treasurer" = Treasurer of the United States, yes. It was during the mid-1930s that the Treasurer began to have major responsibilities assigned to the Secretary of the Treasury.

The Saint-Gaudens book I wrote and which is sold by Heritage, has my name in the upper right of the cover. It is packed with solid research information and lots of details never before made public. Here's the cover:

The above took more than a year of direct research (basically full time) plus materials I'd collected for the previous decade. The date/mint photos are from the Morse and Duckor collections, but detail images and others come from many sources.

The old book, although interesting, was a promotional publication. The one I wrote and Heritage edited is a true research publication. It won both Book of the Year, and Best Specialty Book awards from NLG.

:)

Edited March 30, 2020 by RWB

[RWB]

A primary factor in confusing collector about 1933 DE is the assumption by many that the coins were somehow treated differently than prior years DE. I've noted it before, but to be blunt: 1933 DE were treated exactly the same in all respects as DE (or other gold) from prior years.

[GoldFinger1969]

34 minutes ago, RWB said:

"The above took more than a year of direct research (basically full time) plus materials I'd collected for the previous decade. The date/mint photos are from the Morse and Duckor collections, but detail images and others come from many sources.

The old book, although interesting, was a promotional publication. The one I wrote and Heritage edited is a true research publication. It won both Book of the Year, and Best Specialty Book awards from NLG.

I'm looking forward to it.  As I have spent more and more time researching (and adding to my nascent collection) of Saint-Gaudens coins, I'm getting more proficient in grading and judging the individual coins, but aside from HA high-res pics, most of the books I have (Akers, Bowers) are low-res.  Even the internet, lots of sites the pics aren't high-res or high quality.  So I'm looking forward to getting your book. 

I enjoyed FMTM but I think this book will be easier for me to digest with the pictures and the subject matter. 

Edited March 30, 2020 by GoldFinger1969

[RWB]

One of the goals was to open DE collecting to major die varieties. There are already several dozen DE collectors hunting for these, and a couple of new ones have been discovered. With 90% of all SG DE having been melted, it's impossible to guess what might remain. The most dramatic so far is 1922-S Filed Obverse - It looks like someone literally scraped a flat file across the obverse die, then struck coins.

Edited March 30, 2020 by RWB

[Ronyahski]

Hi Roger - I joined the NGC boards back in 2007, but as my first post to them 13 years later, thought that I would ask you a question. Actually I asked you this about 10 years ago, but time for an update.  The Mint produced double mint sets in cardboard packaging from 1947 - 1958.  Have you ever run across any type of information at all related to these? Why this packaging?  Why cardboard cut-outs? Who made the packaging for the Mint? Requisition documents? Specs?   Why double sets?  There are apparently mintage records for the number of double mint sets (at least there are published numbers).  Where are those records?

Any suggestions on where to look for documents, or do you think they were likely destroyed via the great document purge?

[RWB]

OK…so …. now that your massively excellent book is in print, you have time on your hands to bug me about a 10-year old question…. Hmmm ….if you’d waited 3 more years the question could have had a bar mitzvah!

Here are my responses in order of the questions. None of the responses are really “answers” – more like backward questions and suppositions. That is, I have no objective data.

Have you ever run across any type of information at all related to these? No.

Why this packaging?   It was cheap and convenient.

Why cardboard cut-outs?  It was cheap, convenient and very easy to change.

Who made the packaging for the Mint? Unknown. Likely a Government Printing Office contractor in the Washington DC area – the Treasury in Washington got coins from each mint and staff assembled the sets by hand – probably in a dank basement room with rats running around and cob webs hanging from the ceiling…. Old Boris Karloff movies playing on the break room wall

Requisition documents? Specs?   Unknown, but would likely be in RG50 “Treasurer of the US” and not Secretary of the Treasury (RG56).

Why double sets?  So collectors would have a complete set with one order, and could display both sides of each coin.

There are apparently mintage records for the number of double mint sets (at least there are published numbers). Where are those records?  I don’t know. Maybe Treasurer of the US or even GSA procurement records….? Since the Mint Bureau did not have anything to do with the sets, I doubt their archive would have anything.

Another factor -- the Mint Bureau had quietly promised a return to proof sets in 1947, but Congress decided it wanted a piece of the action and that caused delay until 1950. It is possible this had something to do with formal packaging in 1947 and forward. Check the references in my book on Proof coins 1936-1942 - I recall documents about proof sets, but not mint sets -but that was 8 years ago.

Any suggestions on where to look for documents, or do you think they were likely destroyed via the great document purge? With the most likely sources of documentation NOT being part of occasional Mint Purges (aka “Hackel’s Paper Enemas”) I can only suggest as above.

[The Treasurer’s office took control of sending coins to collectors in about 1922. The whole process of individual making an order from each mint, and the back and forth correspondence about postage, registration, quantities, etc. had become a burden. Further, the process produced no profit to offset expenses. Similar sets or selections of new coins could be ordered throughout the 20s, 30s and until packaging was introduced in 1947. (These groups of coins occasionally show up in auctions accompanied by false claims as "Official Mint Set" or other such nonsense.) Treasury's operation continued until 1965 when the Mint Bureau assumed all control of collector coin orders.]

 

Edited March 31, 2020 by RWB

[GoldFinger1969]

Roger, I thought I saw a bibliography of your work somewhere in this forum.  Now I can't find it.  So with that in mind.....

(1)  Do you have LINKS to all your Coin World articles you have written (if too voluminious, then just those on Saint-Gaudens DE's will suffice) ?  I've tried to use the Search function @ Coin World -- useless. 

(2)  Can you post the Cashier's Daily Statement document(cited in Coin World, I think) that talked about $3,180 in Double Eagles leaving the Philadelphia Mint from March-April 1933 ?

Edited March 31, 2020 by GoldFinger1969

[RWB]

I'll see if I can find the materials.

[GoldFinger1969]

Thanks Roger....no rush, take your time.

BTW, I ordered the Saint-Gaudens book from Heritage.  600+ pages.....should last me a good time during this lock-down ! 

Edited March 31, 2020 by GoldFinger1969

[RWB]

20 hours ago, GoldFinger1969 said:

Roger, I thought I saw a bibliography of your work somewhere in this forum.  Now I can't find it.  So with that in mind.....

(1)  Do you have LINKS to all your Coin World articles you have written (if too voluminious, then just those on Saint-Gaudens DE's will suffice) ?  I've tried to use the Search function @ Coin World -- useless. 

(2)  Can you post the Cashier's Daily Statement document(cited in Coin World, I think) that talked about $3,180 in Double Eagles leaving the Philadelphia Mint from March-April 1933 ?

I don't have any on-line links to the CW articles. As far as I know, using CW's search function is about it.

The Cashiers Daily Statements have been uploaded to NNP and posted at: https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/archivedetail/534072 . Use the link, then select the year you want. If a day is missing it means it was not in the archive box.

 

[DWLange]

Roger's Saint-Gaudens Double Eagle book is superb. I read it word by word.

NGC has added many of the Heritage/Burdette varieties to its VarietyPlus roster, as well as a few others that were discovered in-house. Check it out:

https://www.ngccoin.com/variety-plus/united-states/gold-double-eagles/saint-gaudens-20-1907-1933/?page=1

[GoldFinger1969]

37 minutes ago, DWLange said:

Roger's Saint-Gaudens Double Eagle book is superb. I read it word by word.

NGC has added many of the Heritage/Burdette varieties to its VarietyPlus roster, as well as a few others that were discovered in-house. Check it out:

https://www.ngccoin.com/variety-plus/united-states/gold-double-eagles/saint-gaudens-20-1907-1933/?page=1

Thanks DWL....I ordered Roger's book, it should be here by next week.  Looks like I'll have plenty of time to read it the next few weeks (months ?), what with no sports or anything except the NFL Draft. 

I haven't considered or looked at any of the varieties or die differences that Roger talks about above.  I will though. 

The one thing is....I'm just getting up to speed on Saints from a historical perspective....THE LAST THING I need is to get overhwlemed by die minutae and variations like those VAM differences which I have never had the time (or quite frankly, the inclindation) to learn about even though I do have some MSD's.  They segment the series so much that unless you are retired (I'm not) and don't have to work (I do) you can't possibly spend the time to become an expert on them except over many years.

Edited April 1, 2020 by GoldFinger1969

[RWB]

Take heart ! There's a vaccine to prevent "VAMming" or becoming a "VAMpire." Only wives of coin collectors are permitted to buy it.

:)

[GoldFinger1969]

Roger, I'm having trouble finding the 2 pieces referenced to you in Coin World in that portal.

Here's the 2 pieces I'm trying to find:

And even more important was a letter dated Sept. 26, 1945, from William Bartholomew, superintendent of the Coinage Department of the Philadelphia mint, indicating that production of the 1933 double eagle began on March 2, 1933, not on March 15 as generally believed and the government had long maintained. The March 2 date was believed to be a “smoking gun” because it was before President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued an executive order halting production of gold coins. Another document was cited that seemed to bolster the position. It was prepared prior to a trial in Memphis, Tenn., in June 1947, that focused on the “cashier’s daily statement” for the period of March 7 through April 12, 1933, indicating $3,180 in double eagles were paid out by the Philadelphia Mint cashier during the period.

I have a transcript of the trial (somewhere) but I don't recall the exhibits being part of the download so I couldn't see what the jurors and all of you in court were seeing.  I saw them referenced in the transcript but didn't visually see them.

I presume the 1947 evidence is in regard to the Barnard coin case.

[RWB]

The "1947 document" is a statement signed by Bartholomew that describes how, as part of normal operations, some coins date 1933 were pulled from the first striking and put with the 1932s. This was to correct a shortfall in 1932s reported prior to June 30, 1932. The was routine when production had stopped and more coins were condemned than expected. The usual procedure was to shift coin from the next delivery in the same calendar year, but in 1932 there were no more DE deliveries.

This was suppressed in 1947 and never shown to the defense or Court. Mint management knew about it and had actually solicited it.

In 2011 I was only permitted a superficial description, and because critical operations information was prohibited by the Court, the strength of Bartholomew's document was lost.

Edited April 5, 2020 by RWB

[GoldFinger1969]

Lying bastards........

So the Coin World article was incorrect in that neither of those pieces, even though they existed, were really introduced in that trial ?

Edited April 5, 2020 by GoldFinger1969