This is what a “Vault Seal” from the 1940s looked like.
RogerB
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Various methods were used to seal a vault or cage ("compartment") to prevent unauthorized removal of coins or bullion. This version is from the 1940s and came into use in 1935 under directors from Director Ross. Prior to that only the envelope and ribbon with wax seal were used, although sometimes the envelope contains a brief note about contents. Ross greatly improved security and accountability of gold and silver, and of the Mint Bureau buildings themselves.
There were three parts:
1. Summary and authorized signatures on an envelope (top)
2. Description and explanation (middle) enclosed in the envelope, and
3. Wax seals and ribbon that had to be broken to enter the vault or cage.
The ribbon was threaded through holes in the envelope before sealing. The larger inventory could be removed for examination if desired, or kept in the chief clerk's office.
(Items pictured above are from different seals. Complete sets are known only from the 1950s and later. Most were destroyed after the vault was opened.)
Comments
Neat history
That’s pretty cool!
Cool!
This brings up an interesting thought about the little things.
Who carried/brought the typewriter to make inventory for signatures? Except for the envelope everything else was typed.
A clerk usually was present to prepare documents as needed.
Nice.
Did "circulated and unfit" mean that some were merely circulated and the rest unfit, or that all were unfit due to the circulation, or what?
@RogerB Your posts here on CU are as much a treasure as that which you write about. Thank you for the frequent and amazing content!
"Circulated" meant that the coins had been distributed by the Mint of origin and removed from their original package. Anything that had been received by a FRB from a member bank was "circulated" except original packaging. The definition centered on weight of fine silver or gold that might have been lost.
"Unfit" referred to damaged, mutilated, burned or otherwise and could not be returned to circulation. These were melted along with light-weight coins and used for new ingots. Chop marked Trade dollars were "mutilated coins" as were merchant stamped silver and bronze. The so-called Economite silver would also fit the Mint's criteria.
You and everyone else who is interested are welcome. Many of these are things that are not really worthy of an article, or relate to questions I'm asked by collectors, dealers, and occasionally officials. These little posts will also be available to anyone searching for the subject due to the way Google and others crawl and index the internet. They also benefit the message board hosts (mostly here and NGC) because those search links bring viewers to their sites.
PS for CaptHenway's question. The Treasury also sold circulated and mutilated dollars to Kodak and other businesses that needed silver. This cut the Mint's cost of melting and handling, and got rid of "dead inventory."
Very interesting to see how those records were handled... 12 million silver dollars all in one spot (or even 34 million), must have been fun to see... but not fun to move!!
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He beat me to it! You should be EXEMPT from the ban button unless you wrote something w aaaaa ay out of line like @HeatherBoyd eats too much chocolate candy.
Thanks, but no. The same rules apply to all - just like the same laws apply to all.
But I appreciate the sentiment.
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Interesting. I would have thought that Kodak would have wanted .999 bars.
Many Thanks for the very cool post @RogerB
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During WW-II the Treasury did some otherwise unusual things. In the case of Kodak and other makes of light sensitive products, mutilated dollars were sold as bullion scrap. Circulated dollars were also re-categorized as "mutilated" and also sold as scrap -- at the treasury bullion price. Under wartime production pressures it was cheaper for the mints to use fresh silver bars from the stockpile, than to go to the trouble of cleaning, melting and assaying melted dollars - even though the alloy was OK for subsidiary silver coinage. This also gave Kodak a quick source of silver, and cleared mint and Treasury storage space needed for foreign coins.
Seems to have been mostly a matter of short term expedience.
Great thread, thank you for the history lesson.
Very interesting... such security measures would be humorous today... Thanks for the pictures and history @RogerB...Cheers, RickO
Similar procedures are used at West Point and wherever precious metals - even the useless palladium - are in use.