Territorial $50 slugs. What were they used for?

FrankH

What did they need $50 for back then?
All I can think of is buying land.

$5 should buy an egg or something.

CaptHenway

Merchants buying inventory, businesses buying supplies, builders buying lumber, any kind of purchase over $50.

Smudge

Add 2 zeros. What would you buy now?

amwldcoin

Gambling!

DrDarryl

1st: Vices (i.e., liquor, gambling, women, etc.) for one. JK

The law that that established the US Assay Office in San Francisco also stipulated the denominations of $50 to $10,000 were to be struck. "They are to be struck of refined gold, of uniform fineness, and with appropriate legends and devices similar to those upon our smaller coins, with their value conspicuously marked, ang inscriptions LIBERTY and UNITED STATES OF AMERICA." ~ from page 141, Private Gold Coins and Patterns of the US, Donald H. Kagin, Ph.D.

2nd: Knockout Robbery. I like the story that bandits would fill a bag with heavy $50 gold and "slug" victims for the knockout, then steal anything of value on them.

Former pieces in my collection that I sold (several years ago).

numisma

@FrankH said:
What did they need $50 for back then?
All I can think of is buying land.

$5 should buy an egg or something.

Bank-to-bank transactions. Very nice slugs @DrDarryl, especially your (ex) 880. Wonder where they are now.

BillJones

The slug is one coin that has eluded me. When I saw the “right one,” I didn’t have the money. When saw “the wrong one,” I had the money but refused to pull the trigger. Many of these coins a banged up, and “optimistically graded.”

golden

Tie 5 or 6 in a handkerchief and slug someone over the head to rob them. Hence the name.

FrankH

@golden said:
Tie 5 or 6 in a handkerchief and slug someone over the head to rob them. Hence the name.

Be cheaper to shoot em.

Zoins

@DrDarryl said:
Former pieces in my collection that I sold (several years ago).

Very nice! Did you get your pedigree added before selling?

LukeMarshall

@amwldcoin said:
Gambling!

This is my favorite answer

Would a round fifty be considered a slug too?

Tomthemailcarrier

A Google search below. I never knew that paper money was illegal in early California.
The $50 octagonal “slug,” called an adobe in local trade, as perhaps these pieces resembled bricks in a way, was a mainstay of California commerce in the days of the Gold Rush. Such pieces were used in large transactions, being the coin of choice, since people shunned paper money and in fact paper money was illegal in the state (under the Constitution of 1850) for this very reason; also, lesser denomination gold coins were often unobtainable. Such octagonal $50 pieces were last minted in 1852
Sources were listed as multiple….www.coinfacts.com; http://www.pcgscoinfacts.com; http://coins.ha.com}

steveben

mining equipment and claims

braddick

"Slugs, huh, yeah
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing, uhh
Slugs, huh, yeah
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing
Say it again, y'all
Slugs, huh (good God)
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing, listen to me, oh"

-(Modified) Edwin Starr

PerryHall

@Tomthemailcarrier said:
A Google search below. I never knew that paper money was illegal in early California.
The $50 octagonal “slug,” called an adobe in local trade, as perhaps these pieces resembled bricks in a way, was a mainstay of California commerce in the days of the Gold Rush. Such pieces were used in large transactions, being the coin of choice, since people shunned paper money and in fact paper money was illegal in the state (under the Constitution of 1850) for this very reason; also, lesser denomination gold coins were often unobtainable. Such octagonal $50 pieces were last minted in 1852
Sources were listed as multiple….www.coinfacts.com; http://www.pcgscoinfacts.com; http://coins.ha.com}

Paper money at this time was not issued by the US government but was issued by individual banks, utilities, railroads, and other large businesses and many were of dubious value. This is why California made paper money illegal. The US government didn't consider these slugs to be legal tender money or coins at the time of issue. They considered them to be ingots of gold even though they were marked with a value of $50. Since they were gold of full weight equivalent to the value marked on them, they were used as money and accepted as money in commerce.

ricko

Since most contained 2.2 oz. of gold, that would be about $4200 today.... but the coin's numismatic value far exceeds the PM value. I would surely like to hold one in hand, raw. Just to feel the heft and imagine what history it may have been through. Cheers, RickO

giorgio11

I find it interesting that the original 880 Humbert Lettered Edge fifties (whose obverse Eagle, Rock and Shield design was by Charles Cushing Wright, well-known as the engraver of the 1826 Erie Canal Completion medals HK-1/1000) actually had D and C with a line beside them, so they were "modular" coins that left open the possibility of smaller or larger/odd amounts of dollars and cents. In practice, however, none other than even-fifty-dollar pieces were struck. When Augustus Humbert arrived in California in 1851 with the dies, it appears that he had no idea of the weight, fineness, or thickness that the eventual coins would be. After their production, they were likely considered as much ingots as coins.

CaptHenway

@Tomthemailcarrier said:
A Google search below. I never knew that paper money was illegal in early California.
The $50 octagonal “slug,” called an adobe in local trade, as perhaps these pieces resembled bricks in a way, was a mainstay of California commerce in the days of the Gold Rush. Such pieces were used in large transactions, being the coin of choice, since people shunned paper money and in fact paper money was illegal in the state (under the Constitution of 1850) for this very reason; also, lesser denomination gold coins were often unobtainable. Such octagonal $50 pieces were last minted in 1852
Sources were listed as multiple….www.coinfacts.com; http://www.pcgscoinfacts.com; http://coins.ha.com}

May I inquire, please, where you first heard a $50 slug referred to as an "adobe?" I came across the term in a book my wife gave me as a Christmas present about a series of fires that repeatedly devastated San Francisco in the early gold rush days, and it was the first time I had ever heard the usage. I googled it and did find one usage in a numismatic auction.

Thank you.

WillieBoyd2

The $50 coins were called slugs in their day:

From The Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant, published by Mark Twain in 1885:

Oregon, 1852:

Before the advent of the American, the medium of exchange between the Indian and the white man was pelts. Afterward it was silver coin.

If an Indian received in the sale of a horse a fifty dollar gold piece, not an infrequent occurrence, the first thing he did was to exchange it for American half dollars. These he could count.

He would then commence his purchases, paying for each article separately, as he got it. He would not trust any one to add up the bill and pay it all at once.

At that day fifty dollar gold pieces, not the issue of the government, were common on the Pacific coast. They were called slugs.

By the way, I have read the term "adobe dollar" or "'dobe dollar" in history books and it meant a Mexican silver peso coin.

Tomthemailcarrier

@CaptHenway said:

May I inquire, please, where you first heard a $50 slug referred to as an "adobe?" I came across the term in a book my wife gave me as a Christmas present about a series of fires that repeatedly devastated San Francisco in the early gold rush days, and it was the first time I had ever heard the usage. I googled it and did find one usage in a numismatic auction.

Thank you.
@CaptHenway the “adobe” reference is in the rather long article below.

https://potofgoldestate.com/precious-metals/treasure-and-history-collide-in-one-50-coin/

BuffaloIronTail

@braddick said:
"Slugs, huh, yeah
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing, uhh
Slugs, huh, yeah
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing
Say it again, y'all
Slugs, huh (good God)
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing, listen to me, oh"

-(Modified) Edwin Starr

Yep.

"Induction, then destruction"
"Who wants to die?"

Peace and Love.

Pete

CaptHenway

@Tomthemailcarrier said:

@CaptHenway said:

May I inquire, please, where you first heard a $50 slug referred to as an "adobe?" I came across the term in a book my wife gave me as a Christmas present about a series of fires that repeatedly devastated San Francisco in the early gold rush days, and it was the first time I had ever heard the usage. I googled it and did find one usage in a numismatic auction.

Thank you.
@CaptHenway the “adobe” reference is in the rather long article below.

https://potofgoldestate.com/precious-metals/treasure-and-history-collide-in-one-50-coin/

Thanks.
Tom

FrankH

From the link:

"The $50 octagonal “slug,” called an adobe in local trade, as perhaps these pieces resembled bricks in a way, was a mainstay of California commerce in the days of the Gold Rush. Such pieces were used in large transactions, being the coin of choice, since people shunned paper money and in fact paper money was illegal in the state (under the Constitution of 1850) for this very reason"