Details, details, details -- how to pay for gold deposits
RogerB
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This little letter to the San Francisco Mint (and also Carson) suggest the level of detail required from the Mint Director's office in the 19th century.
The original instructions of February 2, 1875 state that silver extracted from deposits of native gold was to be paid for in gold coin at the rate of $1.125 per Troy ounce, standard (equal to $1.25 fine). The basic rule was that deposits were paid in the dominant metal or by check/Treasury transfer.
[RG104 E-234 vol 004]
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Comments
Interesting.... Has the reply, giving the reason for the oversight, been found yet? Or did they just fire the dude...Cheers, RickO
The reply, if kept, would be in E-229, Letters Received. However, that series is sparse until 1895.
The panic of 1873 lasted a few years; probably affected the mentality of government workers and strict rules.
Here's another typical letter concerning the cost of a single telegram....
There are many similar letters and telegrams concerning small sums. Additionally, the Treasury Auditors were quick to find errors both small and large. In many instances, the cost of time to reply was probably greater than the discrepancy.
I see bureaucratic nonsense is not a modern invention. Linderman doesn't sound like anyone's favorite manager.
All of the Mint Directors seemed similarly consumed with tiny details - I guess that was part of the personal responsibility for all that gold and silver. Only with Nellie Ross' tenure after about May 1939 - when former accountant Frank Leland Howard took over the micro-managing - do her mint letters avoid details. However, Ross' letters were nearly always a combination of business, personal, and personnel discussion (along with a dose of politics).
Director Robert Woolley had a separate presscopy file of political correspondence kept at Mint HQ. These are kept at the Library of Congress along with the rest of Woolley's papers. I used this for source and background material when researching _ Renaissance of American Coinage 1916-1921_.