“Portable Source of Wealth--Little Gold Dust Factory in Each Man's Pocket Out West,” 1908
JCH22
Posts: 160 ✭✭✭
Just a bit of coin Americana-- "Pocket Pieces for Profit"!
7
Comments
I have no doubt that there were those who did this! Neat article... thanks for sharing.
People would also "sweat" gold coins by putting a bunch of them in a box and then shake the box vigorously and then collect the gold dust from the box.
Worry is the interest you pay on a debt you may not owe.
"Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value---zero."----Voltaire
"Everything you say should be true, but not everything true should be said."----Voltaire
“…away out west near Detroit or Denver or somewhere in the neighborhood…”
Lol. Geography doesn’t seem to have been one of this reporter’s strong suits.
In Detroit, we always kept our hands on our pockets.
This was tongue-in-cheek I'm pretty sure.
“…away out west near Detroit or Denver or somewhere in the neighborhood…”
>
Original article looks like it first appeared in the New York Sun. View of the west from New York
Very likely. I was just struck by the fact that 1908 was only 40-50 years removed from a time when areas east of the Mississippi (like Michigan) were genuinely considered to be “out west.”
Each year the San Francisco Mint would remove and carefully burn the very large oriental rug in its cash room. This is the room where miners would bring their gold dust to be deposited in return for gold coins. The mint recovered enough lost gold dust from this process to buy a new rug for the cash room. I was told this by a guide when visiting the old San Francisco Mint back in Feb. of 1977.