Just finished my first document: Interesting to read, just wanted to share with you all.
Mint of the United States
Philadelphia Jan 7, 1862
Sir,
Your letter of the 2nd inst. enclosing “a Bill to establish a Branch Mint at Denver in the Territory of Colorado”, and requesting my views thereon, has been received.
The amount of gold received from the mines situated in the section of our country, where it is purposed to establish a Branch Mint, since 1859, the year in which deposits were first made at the Mint and its Branches, from that source, has been as follows:
Deposits of “Pikes Peak” or Colorado gold received at the mint branches during fiscal year ending June 30, 1859 $4,171.70
Deposits from same source, during fiscal year ending June 30, 1860 $622,264.30
Deposits from same source, during fiscal year ending June 30, 1861 $2,091,197.17
Received since 30th June 1861, about $1,160,000.00
$3,877,633.17
It will be seen from this statement that nearly $4,000,000 in gold bullion has been received from the region of country now embraced in the Territory of Colorado, and that there has been a heavy increase from 1859 to 30th June 1861.
The statement also shows that notwithstanding the difficulties which have existed on our western borders, the yield during the last six months has not diminished. The continued production of bullion from the mines in that country, at the present rate, may in any event, be confidently relied on, and under favorable circumstances, then would no doubt be a considerable increase.
In view of the increased production of gold bullion from that section, and the delay, expense and inconvenience attending its transmission to the mint for coinage, and to aid in diffusing a metallic currency through our western States, the establishment of a Branch Mint in that region for the coinage of gold, would be in accordance with the policy of past legislation in similar cases, and no more than just. Having but little information in relation to the different commercial points in the same, I am not able to say whether the City of Denver is the most advantageous point, all things being considered for locating the proposed Branch Mint. The opinion of the Delegate in Congress, from that Territory on this point will be valuable.
The Bill, for establishing the proposed Branch Mint, appears to be unobjectionable in its general features. A few alterations however, may, with propriety be suggested. The 1st section provides for the establishment of a Branch Mint, at Denver, for “Assaying and Coining gold.” Inasmuch as authority to coin bullion, enhances all the operations necessary to render it fit for coinage, I recommend that the words “Assaying and Coining” in this section be stricken out, and words, “the coinage of gold” inserted in lieu thereof.
Section 3 provides that the officers of the proposed Branch Mint shall become “bound to the United States, with one or more securities, to the satisfaction of the director of the mint and secretary of the Treasury, or the secretary of the Territory of Colorado, with the condition for the faithful performance of their offices.” As this section now stands, the approval by the secretary of the Treasury, of the official Bonds of the Officers, would not be necessary. The word “Securities” should be stricken out, and “Sureties” substituted and the section made to read as follows? “That the officers and clerks to be appointed under this act, before entering upon the execution of their offices, shall take an oath or affirmation , before some judge of the United States, or of the Supreme Court of said Territory, faithfully and diligently to perform the duties thereof, and shall each become bound to the United States of America, with one or more sureties, to the satisfaction of the Director of the Mint or the Secretary of the Territory of Colorado, and the Secretary of the Treasury, for the faithful performance of the duties of their offices.”
The 7th Section should be altered so as to require the Superintendent of the Branch Mint to act also, as Treasurer thereof.
The certificates of deposit authorized to be issued in the 8th Section of the Bill, should be “for the net proceeds of gold bullion deposit for coinage or bars.” This section should be altered accordingly.
Although the sum of Seventy Five Thousand Dollars, the amount proposed to be appropriated by the Bill in question, will probably be sufficient to fit up a coinage establishment equal to the present wants of the Territory, it is respectfully suggested whether sound policy and eventual economy do not require, the establishment of an institution capable of coining not less than ten millions of dollars per annum.
The proposed alterations in the Bill under consideration, as herein suggested, are indicated in pencil mark.
I am, very respectfully,
Your Obedient Servant,
James Pollock
Director of the Mint
Hon. S.P. Chase
Secretary of the Treasury,
Washington City
Some originals are a little more difficult to decipher. Here's a sample that took about 30 minutes to figure out. Some originals are in such poor condition, or the only image is of low quality, or both, that about all that can be done is to list the few intelligible words and phrases.
@RogerB said:
Some originals are a little more difficult to decipher. Here's a sample that took about 30 minutes to figure out. Some
well done. that is a toughie. i'd probably used image editing software on that one. shadows, contrast, invert etc. especially to thin the letters/words. if you used naked eye and grey matter only. kudos.
.
Press copy originals, such as the sample, do not seem to respond well to enhancement. A special kind of ink was used to write the original paper letter and this invariably spread when in contact with the thin transfer sheet. The resulting letters were often broad with even density.
I've scanned some of these using 16-bit grayscale in an attempt to pull out just the sharp core of letters -- works sometimes and not other times. Of course, given to one of the experts unraveling the Pompeii and Herculaneum scrolls, it would be a "piece of cake."
I am, very respectfully,
Your Obedient Servant,
James Pollock
Director of the Mint
Hon. S.P. Chase
Secretary of the Treasury,
Washington City
The obedient servant thing in the day.
J. Pollock being an obedient servant to S,P. Chase, Sec. of Treas.
J. Pollock was Supt. of the Mint for a long time, guess he made it to Director as indicated in the signature.
O.C. Bobsyshell was J.A. Pollock's obedient servant,, when J. Pollock was Supt. of the Mint, as O.C. signature his correspondence with J.A. Pollock, Mint Supt.
Hard to believe O.C. Bobsyshell was anyone's obedient servant,
James Pollock was a former Governor of Pennsylvania. He was director from 1861-1866 and again from 1869-1873 when he became Superintendent of the Philadelphia Mint into 1879. He was succeeded as Superintendent by A. Loudoun Snowden. Several of Pollock's family members worked at the mint at various times, as did Bosbyshell's son.
I can only hope to continue getting easily decipherable copy.... please let it be so. Very interesting subject matter helps to keep interest in the task at hand also.
I hope this is an appropriate place to post these: I really find them to be interesting and hope I am not alone. Thanks to Roger for the opportunity to participate in the transcriptions.
Mint of the United States.
Philadelphia June 19, 1862
Sir,
I have received your letter of the 10th inst. enclosing a copy of a Resolution of the House of Representatives “in relation to the establishment of a Branch Mint, in the Territory of Nevada” and requesting me, “to report such information as may be in my possession in regard to the matter, and to present my views as to the importance of the contemplated measure”
The principal mines worked in the Territory of Nevada, are situated in Carson Valley, about 330 miles N.E. from San Francisco. The deposits at the Mint Branches, of gold and silver bullion therefrom during the last twelve months, have amounted, as nearly as I can estimate from the data in my possession, to about Five Hundred Thousand Dollars. We have no means of ascertaining what the probable increase of production, if any, from that source, will be in the future.
The expense of establishing a Branch Mint, in the Territory of Nevada, and of keeping it in operation afterwards, would be very heavy, and considering that the Branch Mint at San Francisco, is within reasonable distance of the mines of Nevada, the proposed measure is not important either as a convenience to the mining interests, or as tending to increase the production of the precious metals. Moreover, it is inexpedient and unnecessary to increase the number of our minting establishments, – inexpedient, because the certainty of maintaining accurately the legal standards of fineness and weight of the coinage, is diminished by dividing the operations and responsibility, - and unnecessary, because the mints already in operation, and the Branch authorized to be established at Denver, afford every attainable facility & convenience to the different mining regions of our country, and to the public at large.
I have the honor to be,
With great respect,
Your obedient servant,
James Pollock
Director of the Mint
Hon S.P. Chase
Secretary of the Treasury
Washington City
Lots of towns and cities coveted having a U.S. Mint in their midst. Carson succeeded in getting a mint, but the facility was expensive to run and had frequent quality and pilferage problems. St. Louis, Des Moines, Chicago, Denver and a bunch of others filed petitions with Congress and the Treasury Department. "The Dalles" city in Oregon came the closest, until Denver succeeded in getting approval in the mid-1890s. IN the eary 1940s Treasury took out an option for land in Indiana for a "Mid-West Mint;" it never happened due to the war.
As more material is transcribed, events and people become clearer. Eventually, everything will be available via NNP to anyone who is curious.
(However, the selection of documents in my files are biased toward various research topics of my interest over the past 15+ years. Thus, subjects of interest to some, might not be included.)
As individual transcribers work through an increasing total of files, each might begin to perceive connections between documents, or historical events and coinage. Should any transcriber consider something of such interest as to warrant a publishable article, I have no objections at all -- in fact, I encourage it! Objective, factual knowledge is the basis of understanding and good decision making.
There are presently 24 volunteers. Over 500 documents have been completed totaling about 1,600 pages. The error rate continues very low. Confidence has also improved with experience, and that is a very good thing.
My impressions after the last batch I had: The various mints tended to behave like siblings....sniping and complaining about each other!
I had a series of letters between New Orleans and Philadelphia. NO sent some dies back as, "corroded and unusable". Charles E. Barber replied, after examining them, "There's nothing wrong with these dies except (maybe) a little discoloration!" He was going to hang onto them, and send them back again after the next request for dies.
Then there is the request for new machinery at NO. It took nearly two years from the first estimate of cost, and they STILL didn't have approval. They just kept sending in the same cost estimate, justification, and requesting quick action on it.
All very entertaining, in a voyeuristic sort of way.
Lance, Thanks for your help and the many letters you contributed. Every bit helps and brings more information into the numismatic knowledge base. Right now there are 22 active transcribers and a couple on "vacation" due to other commitments. Over 800 documents have been transcribed and more than 4,000 pages.
Typed letters that fail OCR are a nuisance - they are easy to read, but are as bad as handwriting for automated searching. This makes transcription less interesting, I guess because they are "easy." (Well, that's my opinion.)
As I send out some early letters with lower image quality, the rate of return will likely decrease - they simply take longer to decipher.
I was at the archives last Thursday and timed my productivity for searching through the file boxes. Each box contains about 250 documents, and it takes me an hour to search one box and scan items of interest - approximately 30 pages per box. (I have a cheap 12x18-inch flatbed scanner and capture each page at 300 dpi. The scanner does not have a stable color profile, so I have to correct the images when I return home.) Travel is another 2 hr per trip and post-scanning processing is another hour per box. That gets us to the images in the database.
Roger diagnosed me with a sort of transcriber transference disorder today and has prescribed a couple of football games to see if I can shake it off. Sometimes we need someone to just stop enabling us. Thanks for that Roger! I am jonesing for more documents, but I'm sure you know what's best.
Package of documents sent today. I usually ask if volunteers want more - I don't want to have folks burn out or feel overloaded.
The transcriptions have already proven invaluable in connecting various incidents and events. Some of them will eventually become part of a factual revision of the 1836-1882 pattern sale and distribution story - a major subject of interest to many.
@jedm said:
Roger diagnosed me with a sort of transcriber transference disorder today and has prescribed a couple of football games to see if I can shake it off. Sometimes we need someone to just stop enabling us. Thanks for that Roger! I am jonesing for more documents, but I'm sure you know what's best.
These hard ones need multiple proof reading attempts to mostly finish them.
as far as the unknown words.... is there any rules against using an ultraviolet light on these old documents? Supposedly UV light causes iron based inks to fluoresce. Perhaps the unknown words will be readabler.
edit: oops. no outside light sources. anyone have a UV light scanner?
There are some letters with sentences that look like groups of squiggles with almost no uprights, descenders, dots or T-crossings. I thought Russian handwriting was hard to read....some of these are worse.
Another batch sent to "jdem."
(I don't send out the really awful letters....that would be cruel.)
Volunteer transcribers have reached the 8,000 page mark. All of these are being linked to the PDFs of original documents in NARA and Library of Congress. They will then be added to my database and index.
Some lengthy tables - such as "18960527 Weight of uncurrent gold 1834-1896" (21 pages) showing all gold recoinage by denomination and weight from 1834 to 1896 at the Philadelphia Mint - are having only the introductory pages and titles transcribed.
@RogerB said:
Volunteer transcribers have reached the 8,000 page mark. All of these are being linked to the PDFs of original documents in NARA and Library of Congress. They will then be added to my database and index.
So, when available, the search criteria will be?
All of these are being linked to the PDFs of original documents in NARA and Library of Congress.<<
RE:
"So, when available, the search criteria will be?
» show previous quotes
How so? Never signed up for that.
Srsly. Link me not.
No Link."
Well, not quite sure of the question or statement. Does this help? ----
The documents are ones copied from those in NARA and LoC (and others)....nothing is linked to the archives themselves. All will eventually go to the Newman Numismatic Portal, but that is quite a bit in the future.
After checking, transcriptions are converted to PDF format and then linked/connected to the PDF I mad from the archive original. This makes it possible to retrieve both original image and transcription with one search. It is also possible to separate the transcription from the PDF image and put them into separate databases linked by a common element (called a "key') such as the file name.
The search criteria among the documents I have are: almost anything - word, words, phrase, Boolian, fuzzy, stemming, etc.
Oh, sorry. No. The names of transcribers do not get connected to the transcriptions or anything else. That is one reason why the MSWord files are destroyed. I have the only reference to names and that is just to prevent me from sending the same files to two different people.
RE: "I regret participating, in transcription. FWIW, transcribing this stuff?, PITA."
Understood. "PITA." Yes, it's difficult and sometimes boring. Some find it relaxing, or a new challenge; others not so. I can take you off the list if you wish. Just send a quick note so I can reassign any open work. Your help is still appreciated.
I'm halfway through the "snowstorm" batch of 38, and not feeling like it's a PITA at all. If that was the case I would have ended the volunteering way back. In fact I am learning to add only one space after every period, (that is one of the hardest of habits to break) and learning a lot of what I consider really cool stuff. I have even found that my daily communications, i.e. emails, have become more civil and polite. Your most humble servant.....
@RogerB said:
Oh, sorry. No. The names of transcribers do not get connected to the transcriptions or anything else. That is one reason why the MSWord files are destroyed. I have the only reference to names and that is just to prevent me from sending the same files to two different people.
RE: "I regret participating, in transcription. FWIW, transcribing this stuff?, PITA."
Understood. "PITA." Yes, it's difficult and sometimes boring. Some find it relaxing, or a new challenge; others not so. I can take you off the list if you wish. Just send a quick note so I can reassign any open work. Your help is still appreciated.
There's a lot of neat stuff, but it's not something that appeals to everyone. I understand that. Also, most people need a break, too. There are times when I get immersed in a document and forget about the time -- until the dog grabs my leg demanding to go outside or he will do violence to the new carpeting. But other times, I get through a page or so and cannot concentrate - especially if it is a routine thing such as the monthly gold minting report.
I expect volunteers to come and go -- that's OK. This should be enjoyable - and if it's not that's OK.
Thanks Roger, I'm working on them, have 2 1st drafts done. And a good bead on 3 of the others.
One.... well has anyone ever failed at this? I can read about 30% of it. I'm hoping doing the easy ones 1st will acclimate me and more will reveal itself. It's by Snowden and I have another by him in perfect penmanship. I don't know if he didn't actually write one or was hung over for this one or had the US Mint chicken take dictation. I think it's about the new alloy for the 1856 -> Flying Eagle so I'm very interested in it.
Most of the Mint letters were written by clerks from dictation. Sometimes the individuals did their own writing, but that was more commonly for things marked "Private." Clerks had to pass a handwriting test as part of Civil Service in the 1880s.
Transcribing handwriting is a cumulative learning activity. Back when these were written, every literate person could likely read anything. Now, we have little exposure to longhand - even our signatures are often little more than scribbles. As we each become more familiar with letter forms, word shapes and specialized content, it becomes easier. Things that were once incomprehensible, become easy to read. The Western alphabets also help because they have a large proportion of ascenders and descenders in common handwriting. Those become little clues to the intended word, and when combined with standard word order and grammar, the meaning becomes clearer. (Compare to handwritten Cyrillic - very flat looking.)
Your process of making a draft, then going back to it a few days later, is a very good one. That builds on what you learn from each document, making corrections easier.
@RogerB said:
Most of the Mint letters were written by clerks from dictation. Sometimes the individuals did their own writing, but that was more commonly for things marked "Private." Clerks had to pass a handwriting test as part of Civil Service in the 1880s.
Transcribing handwriting is a cumulative learning activity. Back when these were written, every literate person could likely read anything. Now, we have little exposure to longhand - even our signatures are often little more than scribbles. As we each become more familiar with letter forms, word shapes and specialized content, it becomes easier. Things that were once incomprehensible, become easy to read. The Western alphabets also help because they have a large proportion of ascenders and descenders in common handwriting. Those become little clues to the intended word, and when combined with standard word order and grammar, the meaning becomes clearer. (Compare to handwritten Cyrillic - very flat looking.)
Your process of making a draft, then going back to it a few days later, is a very good one. That builds on what you learn from each document, making corrections easier.
Have fun with it!
Pretty fun so far. I'm typing the first run in notepad then I'll go back and paste that into Word and go over them again. For just typing I love Notepad.
I'll get that alloy one, I can't imagine right now that whoever wrote it passed a handwriting exam. I'll figure it out. It has important information in it. I'm certain of that.
Volunteers have transcribed approximately 9,000 pages of US Mint documents; however, I have a backlog of several hundred files yet to review. These will likely add another 1,000 pages. There are about 200 files presently being worked on by 20 active volunteers.
As a reference, after some revisions, the main database is about 210 gigabytes. Plus there are 5 large file boxes and about 20 binders of pre-digital photocopies to be processed.
Quality and accuracy remain very high by everyone (even me...), and that is very encouraging for future access by researchers.
@thebigeng said:
Are "they" looking for something? Was it not written in English?
.
having transcribed many docs myself, i can attest, no, the way they communicated sometimes, it may as well have not been in english!
one kinda has to be trained how to read/transcribe these docs AND as importantly, format them properly for archiving so they can be easily and readily searched/referenced via a database or whatnot. i think they all are going onto the NNP and the NNP has never failed to knock my socks off.
Comments
Fascinating material.
The symbol resembling a plus sign ('+') represents the word 'and.' In corporation titles it is most commonly rendered as an ampersand ('&').
I was temporarily stumped by one of the typed letters I transcribed, by the use of "&c". Finally determined it was intended to represent "etc."
It's the little things that get you....
Just finished my first document: Interesting to read, just wanted to share with you all.
Mint of the United States
Philadelphia Jan 7, 1862
Sir,
Your letter of the 2nd inst. enclosing “a Bill to establish a Branch Mint at Denver in the Territory of Colorado”, and requesting my views thereon, has been received.
The amount of gold received from the mines situated in the section of our country, where it is purposed to establish a Branch Mint, since 1859, the year in which deposits were first made at the Mint and its Branches, from that source, has been as follows:
Deposits of “Pikes Peak” or Colorado gold received at the mint branches during fiscal year ending June 30, 1859 $4,171.70
Deposits from same source, during fiscal year ending June 30, 1860 $622,264.30
Deposits from same source, during fiscal year ending June 30, 1861 $2,091,197.17
Received since 30th June 1861, about $1,160,000.00
$3,877,633.17
It will be seen from this statement that nearly $4,000,000 in gold bullion has been received from the region of country now embraced in the Territory of Colorado, and that there has been a heavy increase from 1859 to 30th June 1861.
The statement also shows that notwithstanding the difficulties which have existed on our western borders, the yield during the last six months has not diminished. The continued production of bullion from the mines in that country, at the present rate, may in any event, be confidently relied on, and under favorable circumstances, then would no doubt be a considerable increase.
In view of the increased production of gold bullion from that section, and the delay, expense and inconvenience attending its transmission to the mint for coinage, and to aid in diffusing a metallic currency through our western States, the establishment of a Branch Mint in that region for the coinage of gold, would be in accordance with the policy of past legislation in similar cases, and no more than just. Having but little information in relation to the different commercial points in the same, I am not able to say whether the City of Denver is the most advantageous point, all things being considered for locating the proposed Branch Mint. The opinion of the Delegate in Congress, from that Territory on this point will be valuable.
The Bill, for establishing the proposed Branch Mint, appears to be unobjectionable in its general features. A few alterations however, may, with propriety be suggested. The 1st section provides for the establishment of a Branch Mint, at Denver, for “Assaying and Coining gold.” Inasmuch as authority to coin bullion, enhances all the operations necessary to render it fit for coinage, I recommend that the words “Assaying and Coining” in this section be stricken out, and words, “the coinage of gold” inserted in lieu thereof.
Section 3 provides that the officers of the proposed Branch Mint shall become “bound to the United States, with one or more securities, to the satisfaction of the director of the mint and secretary of the Treasury, or the secretary of the Territory of Colorado, with the condition for the faithful performance of their offices.” As this section now stands, the approval by the secretary of the Treasury, of the official Bonds of the Officers, would not be necessary. The word “Securities” should be stricken out, and “Sureties” substituted and the section made to read as follows? “That the officers and clerks to be appointed under this act, before entering upon the execution of their offices, shall take an oath or affirmation , before some judge of the United States, or of the Supreme Court of said Territory, faithfully and diligently to perform the duties thereof, and shall each become bound to the United States of America, with one or more sureties, to the satisfaction of the Director of the Mint or the Secretary of the Territory of Colorado, and the Secretary of the Treasury, for the faithful performance of the duties of their offices.”
The 7th Section should be altered so as to require the Superintendent of the Branch Mint to act also, as Treasurer thereof.
The certificates of deposit authorized to be issued in the 8th Section of the Bill, should be “for the net proceeds of gold bullion deposit for coinage or bars.” This section should be altered accordingly.
Although the sum of Seventy Five Thousand Dollars, the amount proposed to be appropriated by the Bill in question, will probably be sufficient to fit up a coinage establishment equal to the present wants of the Territory, it is respectfully suggested whether sound policy and eventual economy do not require, the establishment of an institution capable of coining not less than ten millions of dollars per annum.
The proposed alterations in the Bill under consideration, as herein suggested, are indicated in pencil mark.
I am, very respectfully,
Your Obedient Servant,
James Pollock
Director of the Mint
Hon. S.P. Chase
Secretary of the Treasury,
Washington City
gratz, good work and neat communication.
.
Some originals are a little more difficult to decipher. Here's a sample that took about 30 minutes to figure out. Some originals are in such poor condition, or the only image is of low quality, or both, that about all that can be done is to list the few intelligible words and phrases.
well done. that is a toughie. i'd probably used image editing software on that one. shadows, contrast, invert etc. especially to thin the letters/words. if you used naked eye and grey matter only. kudos.
.
The sample didn't warrant image enhancement.
Press copy originals, such as the sample, do not seem to respond well to enhancement. A special kind of ink was used to write the original paper letter and this invariably spread when in contact with the thin transfer sheet. The resulting letters were often broad with even density.
I've scanned some of these using 16-bit grayscale in an attempt to pull out just the sharp core of letters -- works sometimes and not other times. Of course, given to one of the experts unraveling the Pompeii and Herculaneum scrolls, it would be a "piece of cake."
The obedient servant thing in the day.
J. Pollock being an obedient servant to S,P. Chase, Sec. of Treas.
J. Pollock was Supt. of the Mint for a long time, guess he made it to Director as indicated in the signature.
O.C. Bobsyshell was J.A. Pollock's obedient servant,, when J. Pollock was Supt. of the Mint, as O.C. signature his correspondence with J.A. Pollock, Mint Supt.
Hard to believe O.C. Bobsyshell was anyone's obedient servant,
James Pollock was a former Governor of Pennsylvania. He was director from 1861-1866 and again from 1869-1873 when he became Superintendent of the Philadelphia Mint into 1879. He was succeeded as Superintendent by A. Loudoun Snowden. Several of Pollock's family members worked at the mint at various times, as did Bosbyshell's son.
I can only hope to continue getting easily decipherable copy.... please let it be so. Very interesting subject matter helps to keep interest in the task at hand also.
I hope this is an appropriate place to post these: I really find them to be interesting and hope I am not alone. Thanks to Roger for the opportunity to participate in the transcriptions.
Mint of the United States.
Philadelphia June 19, 1862
Sir,
I have received your letter of the 10th inst. enclosing a copy of a Resolution of the House of Representatives “in relation to the establishment of a Branch Mint, in the Territory of Nevada” and requesting me, “to report such information as may be in my possession in regard to the matter, and to present my views as to the importance of the contemplated measure”
The principal mines worked in the Territory of Nevada, are situated in Carson Valley, about 330 miles N.E. from San Francisco. The deposits at the Mint Branches, of gold and silver bullion therefrom during the last twelve months, have amounted, as nearly as I can estimate from the data in my possession, to about Five Hundred Thousand Dollars. We have no means of ascertaining what the probable increase of production, if any, from that source, will be in the future.
The expense of establishing a Branch Mint, in the Territory of Nevada, and of keeping it in operation afterwards, would be very heavy, and considering that the Branch Mint at San Francisco, is within reasonable distance of the mines of Nevada, the proposed measure is not important either as a convenience to the mining interests, or as tending to increase the production of the precious metals. Moreover, it is inexpedient and unnecessary to increase the number of our minting establishments, – inexpedient, because the certainty of maintaining accurately the legal standards of fineness and weight of the coinage, is diminished by dividing the operations and responsibility, - and unnecessary, because the mints already in operation, and the Branch authorized to be established at Denver, afford every attainable facility & convenience to the different mining regions of our country, and to the public at large.
I have the honor to be,
With great respect,
Your obedient servant,
James Pollock
Director of the Mint
Hon S.P. Chase
Secretary of the Treasury
Washington City
Lots of towns and cities coveted having a U.S. Mint in their midst. Carson succeeded in getting a mint, but the facility was expensive to run and had frequent quality and pilferage problems. St. Louis, Des Moines, Chicago, Denver and a bunch of others filed petitions with Congress and the Treasury Department. "The Dalles" city in Oregon came the closest, until Denver succeeded in getting approval in the mid-1890s. IN the eary 1940s Treasury took out an option for land in Indiana for a "Mid-West Mint;" it never happened due to the war.
Huh, it's like J.A. Pollock is writing to the Queen of England,
Awesome to see people helping Roger with this project!
Many members on this forum that now it cannot fit in my signature. Please ask for entire list.
As more material is transcribed, events and people become clearer. Eventually, everything will be available via NNP to anyone who is curious.
(However, the selection of documents in my files are biased toward various research topics of my interest over the past 15+ years. Thus, subjects of interest to some, might not be included.)
if the Carson post disappears, one of our heirs went back in time to destroy that letter.
As individual transcribers work through an increasing total of files, each might begin to perceive connections between documents, or historical events and coinage. Should any transcriber consider something of such interest as to warrant a publishable article, I have no objections at all -- in fact, I encourage it! Objective, factual knowledge is the basis of understanding and good decision making.
There are presently 24 volunteers. Over 500 documents have been completed totaling about 1,600 pages. The error rate continues very low. Confidence has also improved with experience, and that is a very good thing.
My impressions after the last batch I had: The various mints tended to behave like siblings....sniping and complaining about each other!
I had a series of letters between New Orleans and Philadelphia. NO sent some dies back as, "corroded and unusable". Charles E. Barber replied, after examining them, "There's nothing wrong with these dies except (maybe) a little discoloration!" He was going to hang onto them, and send them back again after the next request for dies.
Then there is the request for new machinery at NO. It took nearly two years from the first estimate of cost, and they STILL didn't have approval. They just kept sending in the same cost estimate, justification, and requesting quick action on it.
All very entertaining, in a voyeuristic sort of way.
It's been kinda fun so far. I've run into only one small item that was undecipherable to me.
.
i've dropped out of the race but i'm curious how it's going.
.
Lance, Thanks for your help and the many letters you contributed. Every bit helps and brings more information into the numismatic knowledge base. Right now there are 22 active transcribers and a couple on "vacation" due to other commitments. Over 800 documents have been transcribed and more than 4,000 pages.
Typed letters that fail OCR are a nuisance - they are easy to read, but are as bad as handwriting for automated searching. This makes transcription less interesting, I guess because they are "easy." (Well, that's my opinion.)
As I send out some early letters with lower image quality, the rate of return will likely decrease - they simply take longer to decipher.
I was at the archives last Thursday and timed my productivity for searching through the file boxes. Each box contains about 250 documents, and it takes me an hour to search one box and scan items of interest - approximately 30 pages per box. (I have a cheap 12x18-inch flatbed scanner and capture each page at 300 dpi. The scanner does not have a stable color profile, so I have to correct the images when I return home.) Travel is another 2 hr per trip and post-scanning processing is another hour per box. That gets us to the images in the database.
Roger diagnosed me with a sort of transcriber transference disorder today and has prescribed a couple of football games to see if I can shake it off. Sometimes we need someone to just stop enabling us. Thanks for that Roger! I am jonesing for more documents, but I'm sure you know what's best.
Package of documents sent today. I usually ask if volunteers want more - I don't want to have folks burn out or feel overloaded.
The transcriptions have already proven invaluable in connecting various incidents and events. Some of them will eventually become part of a factual revision of the 1836-1882 pattern sale and distribution story - a major subject of interest to many.
These hard ones need multiple proof reading attempts to mostly finish them.
as far as the unknown words.... is there any rules against using an ultraviolet light on these old documents? Supposedly UV light causes iron based inks to fluoresce. Perhaps the unknown words will be readabler.
edit: oops. no outside light sources. anyone have a UV light scanner?
i knew there was a reason why i liked you man.
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I really need to make sure that I dot all my i's and cross all my t's.
I think I know the origin of the phrase now.
There are some letters with sentences that look like groups of squiggles with almost no uprights, descenders, dots or T-crossings. I thought Russian handwriting was hard to read....some of these are worse.
Another batch sent to "jdem."
(I don't send out the really awful letters....that would be cruel.)
Sure, I would be happy to help. I will do the best I can.
Fan of the Oxford Comma
CCAC Representative of the General Public
2021 Young Numismatist of the Year
PM sent with information and email address to participate.
Thanks!
Volunteer transcribers have reached the 8,000 page mark. All of these are being linked to the PDFs of original documents in NARA and Library of Congress. They will then be added to my database and index.
Some lengthy tables - such as "18960527 Weight of uncurrent gold 1834-1896" (21 pages) showing all gold recoinage by denomination and weight from 1834 to 1896 at the Philadelphia Mint - are having only the introductory pages and titles transcribed.
So, when available, the search criteria will be?
How so? Never signed up for that.
Srsly. Link me not.
No Link.
RE:
"So, when available, the search criteria will be?
How so? Never signed up for that.
Srsly. Link me not.
No Link."
Well, not quite sure of the question or statement. Does this help? ----
The documents are ones copied from those in NARA and LoC (and others)....nothing is linked to the archives themselves. All will eventually go to the Newman Numismatic Portal, but that is quite a bit in the future.
After checking, transcriptions are converted to PDF format and then linked/connected to the PDF I mad from the archive original. This makes it possible to retrieve both original image and transcription with one search. It is also possible to separate the transcription from the PDF image and put them into separate databases linked by a common element (called a "key') such as the file name.
The search criteria among the documents I have are: almost anything - word, words, phrase, Boolian, fuzzy, stemming, etc.
"Well, not quite sure of the question or statement. Does this help? ----
"
Not really.
Just want to make sure you aren't linking transcriber in you future DB.
I regret participating, in transcription.
FWIW, transcribing this stuff?, PITA.
Oh, sorry. No. The names of transcribers do not get connected to the transcriptions or anything else. That is one reason why the MSWord files are destroyed. I have the only reference to names and that is just to prevent me from sending the same files to two different people.
RE: "I regret participating, in transcription. FWIW, transcribing this stuff?, PITA."
Understood. "PITA." Yes, it's difficult and sometimes boring. Some find it relaxing, or a new challenge; others not so. I can take you off the list if you wish. Just send a quick note so I can reassign any open work. Your help is still appreciated.
I'm halfway through the "snowstorm" batch of 38, and not feeling like it's a PITA at all. If that was the case I would have ended the volunteering way back. In fact I am learning to add only one space after every period, (that is one of the hardest of habits to break) and learning a lot of what I consider really cool stuff. I have even found that my daily communications, i.e. emails, have become more civil and polite. Your most humble servant.....
Crazy. Whatever works. I'm out.
Don't Care.
I expect volunteers to come and go -- that's OK. This should be enjoyable - and if it's not that's OK.
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OK, Lance. Your next project is to transcribe 2nd century Koine Greek from ancient scrolls. Hint - they didn't put spaces between words.
Enjoy what you are doing, and know that the transcriptions you made are much appreciated and will be put to good use.
[PS: 8k pages....about 1,200 documents]
Thanks Roger, I'm working on them, have 2 1st drafts done. And a good bead on 3 of the others.
One.... well has anyone ever failed at this? I can read about 30% of it. I'm hoping doing the easy ones 1st will acclimate me and more will reveal itself. It's by Snowden and I have another by him in perfect penmanship. I don't know if he didn't actually write one or was hung over for this one or had the US Mint chicken take dictation. I think it's about the new alloy for the 1856 -> Flying Eagle so I'm very interested in it.
Having fun and looking forward to it.
Most of the Mint letters were written by clerks from dictation. Sometimes the individuals did their own writing, but that was more commonly for things marked "Private." Clerks had to pass a handwriting test as part of Civil Service in the 1880s.
Transcribing handwriting is a cumulative learning activity. Back when these were written, every literate person could likely read anything. Now, we have little exposure to longhand - even our signatures are often little more than scribbles. As we each become more familiar with letter forms, word shapes and specialized content, it becomes easier. Things that were once incomprehensible, become easy to read. The Western alphabets also help because they have a large proportion of ascenders and descenders in common handwriting. Those become little clues to the intended word, and when combined with standard word order and grammar, the meaning becomes clearer. (Compare to handwritten Cyrillic - very flat looking.)
Your process of making a draft, then going back to it a few days later, is a very good one. That builds on what you learn from each document, making corrections easier.
Have fun with it!
Pretty fun so far. I'm typing the first run in notepad then I'll go back and paste that into Word and go over them again. For just typing I love Notepad.
I'll get that alloy one, I can't imagine right now that whoever wrote it passed a handwriting exam. I'll figure it out. It has important information in it. I'm certain of that.
That's good. Just don't stress about any of it. Have fun, enjoy the experience and interesting information. Do what you can, and take breaks.
Volunteers have transcribed approximately 9,000 pages of US Mint documents; however, I have a backlog of several hundred files yet to review. These will likely add another 1,000 pages. There are about 200 files presently being worked on by 20 active volunteers.
As a reference, after some revisions, the main database is about 210 gigabytes. Plus there are 5 large file boxes and about 20 binders of pre-digital photocopies to be processed.
Quality and accuracy remain very high by everyone (even me...), and that is very encouraging for future access by researchers.
Thanks to all!
anyone here know what the page count is up to now?
Are "they" looking for something? Was it not written in English?
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having transcribed many docs myself, i can attest, no, the way they communicated sometimes, it may as well have not been in english!
one kinda has to be trained how to read/transcribe these docs AND as importantly, format them properly for archiving so they can be easily and readily searched/referenced via a database or whatnot. i think they all are going onto the NNP and the NNP has never failed to knock my socks off.