Sample of Cashier's Daily Statement

RWB

For those who have never seen one, here is a sample of the Cashier's Daily Statement from the Philadelphia Mint, October 7, 1932. Every Mint and Assay office prepared one of these daily and sent it to Mint HQ. Much of the correspondence between HQ and the mint offices was due to questions about items on these statements.

COINB0Y

Now a days they just make it up and don't bother to count anything.

Dokis

Cool stuff. Reminds me of trying to get a typewriter to line up the letters or numbers in those little square boxes. It can drive one nuts.

adamlaneus

No quarter eagles at all?

And note the tiny amount of silver halves compared with everything else.

All sorts of cool stuff in this! Thanks!

secondrepublic

And now the $7 million question -- Do any of these forms from 1933 potentially address or suggest the possible departure of double eagles from the mint?

RWB

The "Receipts" section (upper left) would show any coins struck that day. Most of the rest is inventory. Notice how the Pittman silver dollars and other silver dollars (pre-1921 Morgans) are separated.

RWB

Do any of these forms from 1933 potentially address or suggest the possible departure of double eagles from the mint?

The statements show daily deliveries of struck coins (including $10 and $20 gold) and official payouts of gold coin. However, they do not show if coins were exchanged for like-kind coins.

There is nothing from March-June 1933 which adds to the present contentions in the Langboard case.

nickel

given the opportunity , I would purchase and/or treasure this item more than a similarly
priced coin .

AMRC

457 Million dollars and they had to account for $38 in Postage.... To be there and see all that would have been amazing.

Kablemodem

I think that is 38 cents in postage.

AUandAG

At least they kept the cost of postage down. 38¢. IF only Gov't would
do that today.
Interesting to view,
thanks,
bob

airplanenut

<< <i>457 Million dollars and they had to account for $38 in Postage.... To be there and see all that would have been amazing. >>

That's 38 cents, not $38

RWB

The cashier and superintendent had to remain at work until the daily statements balanced to the cent. Although there were clerks for each department who tracked things, it all had to balance.

There were also weekly, monthly, quarterly, semi-annual and FY and CY statements, plus several others such as certification of bullion sources, assay reports, die life, coins struck (vs coins accepted), etc.

AuroraBorealis

RWB Thanks for all the interesting info...Your posts are informative and interesting and takes effort ...

AB

ProofArtworkonCircs

In the latter half of the 19th century, they had lightweight pattern dollars called standard dollars.
In the 20th century they had standard silver dollars which were the full weight dollars as opposed to lightweight subsidiary silver. When was the switch in the meaning of standard?

CaptHenway

I wonder if the $16,000.00 in "Unct. S.S. Dollars" were the bags of Lafayette silver dollars that were melter later.
TD

IGWT

Fun to see stuff like this. Not much correspondence leaving the Mint that day. And how did they get to $0.38 for postage? Wasn't postage $0.03 per ounce in the fall of '32? Maybe the Cashier and Superintendent stayed late into the night trying to find the missing cent.

Buffalode

Thanks for posting this Roger, I always enjoy seeing these pieces of Mint history. Can you give some explanation on the line items for "Certificate bars-gold" and "Commercial bars-gold" as far as what the distinction means? Also, would they have been a standardized weight, or would they have varied and the Mint would have had to track the actual value of each bar to determine a total value? Thanks in advance for any insight and Happy New Year!

Coinosaurus

<< <i>I wonder if the $16,000.00 in "Unct. S.S. Dollars" were the bags of Lafayette silver dollars that were melter later.
TD >>



I guess if you had all the earlier and later statements, you could tell when they came it, and when they got melted.

Neat stuff!

ProofArtworkonCircs

<<Fun to see stuff like this. Not much correspondence leaving the Mint that day. And how did they get to $0.38 for postage? Wasn't postage $0.03 per ounce in the fall of '32? Maybe the Cashier and Superintendent stayed late into the night trying to find the missing cent. >>

Local mail within the same city was $0.02 until early WW II.

I remember Christmas cards were 1 1/2 cents postage each. My father ended up needing one more stamp. He agonized over whether he should buy one for 2 cents or 2 for 3 cents and risk losing the extra one over the next year.

segoja

Thier inventory would have been one hell of a coin collection!!!

RWB

Proofartwork -

In the latter half of the 19th century, they had lightweight pattern dollars called standard dollars.
In the 20th century they had standard silver dollars which were the full weight dollars as opposed to lightweight subsidiary silver. When was the switch in the meaning of standard?

The silver dollar issued for circulation was always called the “standard silver dollar.” It met all legal requirements for coinage and was legal tender: the "standard."

Pattern silver dollars were simply possible alternatives varying in either design or composition. Had the laws been changed, then one of them might have become the new “standard silver dollar.” The patterns labeled “Standard” were proposed, only, and not legal tender.

RWB

TD –

I wonder if the $16,000.00 in "Unct. S.S. Dollars" were the bags of Lafayette silver dollars that were melter later.

Nope. Commemoratives were always identified separately – even if there was just one coin. These were “Uncurrent silver dollars” meaning they were not from the Pittman silver but from previous silver sources. This kind of entry appears on many daily reports and indicates the coins were received by the mint or assay office from the Treasury, a FRB or commercial bank for storage.

RWB

Buffalode –

Can you give some explanation on the line items for "Certificate bars-gold" and "Commercial bars-gold" as far as what the distinction means? Also, would they have been a standardized weight, or would they have varied and the Mint would have had to track the actual value of each bar to determine a total value?

Commercial bars were received from smelters, assayed and the value recorded. Certificate bars were produced by US Assay offices or Mints (and a few foreign mints such as France and Great Britain) which were of certified purity and standard weight (400 troy oz). Certificate bars were suitable for coinage use, but commercial bars had to be retested and refined into certificate bars before they could be used in coinage.

Use of the term “certificate bar” was abandoned in the 1930s and replaced by classifying bars as “fine gold” or “coin gold.” Fine gold was 0.999+ gold and coin gold was 0.900 gold. Nearly all foreign gold coin and bars shipped to the US during the 30s and early 40s was melted, refined and cast into one of these two types of bars. The standard weight remained at 400 T oz per bar, but irregular weights were not unusual. Bars were tracked by weight, only. The value was calculated.

Buffalode

<< <i>Buffalode –

Can you give some explanation on the line items for "Certificate bars-gold" and "Commercial bars-gold" as far as what the distinction means? Also, would they have been a standardized weight, or would they have varied and the Mint would have had to track the actual value of each bar to determine a total value?

Commercial bars were received from smelters, assayed and the value recorded. Certificate bars were produced by US Assay offices or Mints (and a few foreign mints such as France and Great Britain) which were of certified purity and standard weight (400 troy oz). Certificate bars were suitable for coinage use, but commercial bars had to be retested and refined into certificate bars before they could be used in coinage.

Use of the term “certificate bar” was abandoned in the 1930s and replaced by classifying bars as “fine gold” or “coin gold.” Fine gold was 0.999+ gold and coin gold was 0.900 gold. Nearly all foreign gold coin and bars shipped to the US during the 30s and early 40s was melted, refined and cast into one of these two types of bars. The standard weight remained at 400 T oz per bar, but irregular weights were not unusual. Bars were tracked by weight, only. The value was calculated. >>



Thanks Roger. I wonder how much gold was lost from all the melting and refining. It seems like it would have been hard to have known that all losses were from this. I guess the Mint relied on physical security to prevent other losses and I suppose their experience would give a pretty good idea of what loss would be "normal" from a particular melting and refining operation. Again, I am just guessing, I really don't know. Thanks again for sharing your knowledge.

RWB

On a per-melt basis, losses were about 0.0001. That was written off in the bullion dept. accounts. However, metal was recovered from sweeps, periodic incineration of gloves and aprons, cleaning of equipment and crushing of crucibles. This recovered metal was credited back to the mint or assay office. There were also assay errors and rounding errors to contend with. (The old San Francisco Mint probably has several hundred ounces of gold and silver imbedded in its walls and woodwork.)

CaptHenway

<< <i>TD –

I wonder if the $16,000.00 in "Unct. S.S. Dollars" were the bags of Lafayette silver dollars that were melter later.

Nope. Commemoratives were always identified separately – even if there was just one coin. These were “Uncurrent silver dollars” meaning they were not from the Pittman silver but from previous silver sources. This kind of entry appears on many daily reports and indicates the coins were received by the mint or assay office from the Treasury, a FRB or commercial bank for storage. >>



Maybe the Seated Liberty dollars that turned up in the early 1960's?

TD

RWB

TD. Quite possible. There seems to have been no distinction as to design.

ProofArtworkonCircs

<<Maybe the Seated Liberty dollars that turned up in the early 1960's?>>

Would any hoard that old be still around the mint or more apt to be in the main Treasury vaults in Washington?

CaptHenway

<< <i><<Maybe the Seated Liberty dollars that turned up in the early 1960's?>>

Would any hoard that old be still around the mint or more apt to be in the main Treasury vaults in Washington? >>



It makes no sense that those bags of New Orleans Mint dollars survived the Civil War, so who can guess where they were or where they ended up?
TD

RWB

Movement of large quantities of silver dollars and other coins was common. Here's another example from earlier in 1932.

adamlaneus

Look closely at "Receipts". "Double Eagles". A million dollars worth.

There is a small red dot.

I wonder what that is.

CaptHenway

<< <i>Look closely at "Receipts". "Double Eagles". A million dollars worth.

There is a small red dot.

I wonder what that is. >>



A million here, and a million there, and pretty soon you're talking real money.......

RWB

On the original image, the small red dot looks like a smudged typewriter period, but checking some others from Philadelphia, it looks more like a red pencil mark. Only the new coinage entries have this. The Denver Mint reports all have a pencil check mark, again only for the new coinage.

Since this quantity also was sent to mint HQ on daily production reports, I presume a clerk was cross-checking to be sure the reported quantities were identical.

RWB

The Mint had an active recoinage program for gold and silver coins. Note the $1.3 million (right column) held for that purpose.