Mint rejected Serbian coinage contract, 1916 0

[RWB]

This popped up as an interesting letter relating to U.S. neutrality during 1916. Here is the presscopy image and an automatically generated transcription.

Subject: Serbian Coinage.

October 3, 1916.

 Mr. P. H. Pavlovich,

Royal Consulate General of Serbia,

442 West 22nd St.,

New York City.

 

Dear Sir,

 Referring to your letters of September 13th and 23rd, and to reply thereto from this Bureau dated September 26th, relative to proposed coinage for the Government of Serbia, I beg to advise you that upon consultation with other officials of the Department it was again held that this government should not, on the grounds of neutrality, and for the reason that money is regarded as conditional contraband of war, undertake the execution of the coinage desired.

Regretting our inability to serve you in this case,

 I am

Respectfully,

 [Signature] F.J.H. vonEngelken

Director of the Mint.

Edited March 17 by RWB

[Henri Charriere]

Re:  ".... on the grounds of neutrality...."

I wonder what a Newbie would make of that line.   Would he believe that had the chauffeur of Archduke Franz Ferdinand's touring car not made a wrong turn on June 28, 1914, Gavrilo Princip, a Bosnian Serb, would not have been positioned to assassinate the automobile's distinguished passenger; Austria-Hungary would not have declared war on Serbia thereby setting off the "Great War" (which became WW I only after WW II had been fought) and millions of soldiers from an array of nations would not have lost their lives. [Less than a year later, the German sub U-20 torpedoed and sank the Lusitania and it wasn't until fairly recent times that it was established she had indeed been carrying munitions secreted aboard the ocean-going passenger liner with 1,900 people aboard, more than half of whom died -- but that's another story entirely.]

P.S.  The official Mint correspondence exhibits signs of an interesting paper die crack if member L'errorist is around.  

Great bit of history, Roger!

Edited March 18 by Henri Charriere
Routine die polishing.

[zadok]

On 3/17/2024 at 2:15 PM, RWB said:

This popped up as an interesting letter relating to U.S. neutrality during 1916. Here is the presscopy image and an automatically generated transcription.

Subject: Serbian Coinage.

October 3, 1916.

 Mr. P. H. Pavlovich,

Royal Consulate General of Serbia,

442 West 22nd St.,

New York City.

 

Dear Sir,

 Referring to your letters of September 13th and 23rd, and to reply thereto from this Bureau dated September 26th, relative to proposed coinage for the Government of Serbia, I beg to advise you that upon consultation with other officials of the Department it was again held that this government should not, on the grounds of neutrality, and for the reason that money is regarded as conditional contraband of war, undertake the execution of the coinage desired.

Regretting our inability to serve you in this case,

 I am

Respectfully,

 [Signature] F.J.H. vonEngelken

Director of the Mint.

...interesting in that the US mint produced 15,000,000 coins for Serbia in 1917...guess director of mint et al didnt have final say on the matter....

[RWB]

The U.S. entered the war in 1917, so it was no longer neutral.