Dahlonega, GA. Mint
Tomthemailcarrier
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Artifacts from the old Dahlonega mint are here.
Yearly coin output. Note the 1861 $5.00 gold.
An image of the old mint before it burned down in 1878
Artifacts at the Gold Museum.
Site of old mint. Now Price memorial hall.
I was in North GA. visiting a college buddy and we decided to visit the old branch mint site. Previously I had been to the Carson City mint. The Gold museum houses a complete collection of "D" mint gold coins. It was a nice display, but for security reasons they ask you to refrain from pictures. The old mint building was destroyed by a fire after the civil war. It had ceased production in 1861 when conflict was underway here. On its foundation a University building currently stands.
The Gold museum is worth a visit. The staff exhibits that well known southern hospitality and is quite knowledgeable.
Comments
I work closely with the folks at the Gold Museum as a volunteer and I am glad you enjoyed your visit. Nice write up too.
Joseph J. Singleton - First Superintendent of the U.S. Branch Mint in Dahlonega Georgia
Findley Ridge Collection
About Findley Ridge
Been there too, great place!
Latin American Collection
I would definitely like to tour the Dahlonega mint if I should get to that area..... I love gold coins and it would be great to see the series displayed there. I wonder why no $10 or $20 coins? Perhaps equipment restrictions?
Cheers, RickO
Equipment restrictions is right. The idea was to try to keep the gold coins in the U.S. and discourage their export abroad. The thought was that $10 and finally $20 (1850 and later) pieces would encourage exports. The Dahlonega coins press could not make anything larger than a $5 gold. It's just as well the southern goldfields never produced as much bullion as was anticipated. Toward the end the mints made smaller coins, like gold dollars, to increase their mintages.
That put restrictions on the proposed silver coinage too. The bill to allow such a coinage at the two small southern mints didn't make it through Congress.
There is no mint to tour. It burned in 1878. There is now a college administration building on the original foundation. I was lucky enough to get invited to the basement where they have some glassed in doors that allow you to see the old foundation stones.
I am looking forward to returning to Dahlonega in late summer. My niece is getting married there.
I went to the Dahlonega Gold Museum back in the 1980's. Very cool.
I was there during an Atlanta ANA convention related tour in 1987. The college had a complete? collection of the Dahlonega gold coins on display in the main floor hallway at that time. Is the display still there? (I don't know if the college owned the coins or if they were on loan for display purposes.)
The complete collection of Dahlonega gold coins is now in the Gold museum. It is displayed from inside a safe behind a (glass?) window. It's in a hard plastic type holder and all of the coins are visible.
I've been to the mint museums at Dahlonega, Charlotte, and San Francisco. None of the others.
The two sets are one and the same. The collection is known as the "North Georgia College Collection" even though the school name is now the University of North Georgia. In late 1994 an agreement was made to move the collection from Price Memorial Hall to the Dahlonega Gold Museum on a temporary basis while Price Memorial was undergoing a complete remodel.
The move of the collection to the museum was widely applauded in that the coin set received much greater exposure and upon completion of the remodel in 1999 it was agreed that the collection would remain permanently on loan to the museum and that is where they have remained since.
The collection in of itself has a very interesting history but I will leave that for another day.
Joseph J. Singleton - First Superintendent of the U.S. Branch Mint in Dahlonega Georgia
Findley Ridge Collection
About Findley Ridge
@JJSingleton: "The collection in of itself has a very interesting history but I will leave that for another day."
I will remind you to post that story tomorrow.
Latin American Collection
Is the North Ga. College collection related to the North Ga. Collection?
No relationship at all.
Joseph J. Singleton - First Superintendent of the U.S. Branch Mint in Dahlonega Georgia
Findley Ridge Collection
About Findley Ridge
Those with a copy of From Mine to Mint will find a good summary of the Dahlonega Mint, photos and floor plans.
Roger:
Though must such publications are not nearly of the quality of Roger's work, there has been much material published about the Dahlonega Mint. When I was researching pioneer gold of the South in 2013, I was startled to find that there is little material available about The Southern Gold Rush.
It was an extremely important episode in the history of the United States. Yet, The Southern Gold Rush has been so heavily overshadowed by The California Gold Rush that many U.S. citizens are unaware that it ever occurred. I do not recollect learning about The Southern Gold Rush in middle school, high school or college.
The Southern Gold Rush, the Seymour Collection, and Templeton Reid
Would love to hear that story!
It is definitely worth a visit to the mint in Dahlonega. In addition to the displays mentioned they have a video about the Georgia gold Rush that is interesting as well - at the start of the gold rush, there were some pretty sizable gold nuggets found basically just sitting there on the ground. The town is a nice place for an afternoon stroll too.
Whatever you are, be a good one. ---- Abraham Lincoln
When we took the tour this past summer the guide pointed out the gold dust in the bricks. When she shined her light at the right angle you could see the shimmer of gold dust.
I enjoyed hearing about the history very much.
When I go to places like this, the New Orleans Mint, etc. they are all far away behind glass or details cannot be seen clearly of the coins. Why hasn't anyone made an inquiry into getting approval to digitizing the coins close-up? or maybe they have already but have not been widely communicated? My belief is this situation makes it difficult to reasearch and learn about varieties, die states, etc. I used to own a number of Dahl's in the '90-s.
Thanks for the pictures!
A Barber Quartet is made up of Nickels, Dimes, Quarters, and Halves.
Sweet, sounds like fun !!!
The coin display at the Dahlonega Money Museum is not very good because you can’t see the coins easily or very well. The situation is understandable because of the theft problems they have had in the past. Still a book or at least a digital display of the coins would be good.
I agree with Mr. Jones on the idea for a book with illustrations. My trip to the Dahlonega Gold Museum a few years back was the catalyst for what has become an expensive and time-consuming obsession. I have been hunting information on the completed date collection, including its origins, the varieties it contains, and any quality photos of the individual coins. For example, are all mint state or does it contain circulated issues. (I was too new to the hobby to assess when I visited.) There also appears to be a foiled heist a few years back. I am betting @JJSingleton has some insight to these matters??!!
RE: "When we took the tour this past summer the guide pointed out the gold dust in the bricks. When she shined her light at the right angle you could see the shimmer of gold dust."
If memory is correct, the "gold dust" is mica, not gold.
The guide tells you that it's gold dust. They take you into a darkened closet and put a flashlight beam on it. The color that shows does have a yellow-golden flect to it that looks like gold dust. There are still hobbiests in the area who use water based extraction methods to find gold.
Beyond the reality of mica....Think about it --- if gold flecks were so prevalent in local clay as to be visible in bricks, the miners wold have quickly extracted it.
There are hundreds of requests from individuals and hopeful miners for assay of "ore samples" in mint files. Almost all contain either pyrite or mica or both - and that's just the eastern gold vein from Maryland into Alabama. Add Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Tennessee and others just for fun.
I suspect that even if someone paid for a modern assay, the museum would not accept or post the results.
Fools gold was not always fools gold.
Perhaps it could be mentioned to the museum to have a large sized post card type prints made of the coins. Or a series of them highlighting the individual coins. With modern digital photography this would be a great project for our PCGS photographers. Details of the coins could be on the back. A good source of funds for the museum too.
I lived in Atlanta for four years and was never able to make it over to the museum; if I could do it over again I would have definitely made a day out of it
Nice!
Great transactions with oih82w8, JasonGaming, Moose1913.
I made it to the mint museum about 10 years back and it sent me on a near decade long journey of collecting rare date gold
Latin American Collection
A visit to this museum is on my to-do list!
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Let me address some of the comments...
The coins are much better displayed today. The museum went under a 750K renovation earlier this year and now all the coins and gold are in a floor to ceiling bullet proof clear display showing both obverse and reverse, although the reverse side viewing needs some improvement IMO (lighting).
It is gold in the bricks. The building was built in 1836 and the bricks were made locally out of the mud, clay, and sands from Cane Creek, which was a very productive placer creek bed. By 1836 the easy stuff was already worked-out and miners had moved to more easy pickins elsewhere, but there was plenty of gold remaining buried in the creek bed, the source of the bricks. @RogerB mentioned the need of a modern assay. Well, it has already been done. 5 bricks were selected from different locations in the building and sent for assay. All five returned positive for gold. The assay was posted right outside the door where people could look at the bricks. It has been archived now, with the renovation. With that said, most of what people see in the bricks is mica and other minerals, but yes some is gold.
As the easy stuff continued to be worked-out around Dahlonega miners did return to cane creek at a later date. Amalgamation (use of mercury) allowed the extraction of gold from clay the bricks were made of. On a side note, the bricks for the mint were also made from the same source in 1837. I have had two local historians tell me they are aware of stories that after the building burned in Dec 1878 the bricks were stamped out to extract any gold that they contained.
Now onto the North Georgia College Collection. Here is the abridged version with the full story available through the attached documents below. The coin set was donated to the state by Col. Henry A Alexander in 1958. It was his desire that the set be displayed in Dahlonega for the public to see. It was displayed in the North Georgia College Library in a display hung on the wall, poorly secured. The collection was stolen in 1963. It took several years to be replaced using insurance money. In 1972 the collection was completed and it was displayed in the college's administration building Price Memorial Hall. PMH is the building that was built on the original mint foundation in 1879.
In 1994 the collection was sent to the Dahlonega Gold Museum for display during an extended renovation of Price Memorial Hall. After the renovation was completed the University felt that the Gold Museum was a more appropriate home to the coins and they made arrangements to permanently loan the collection to the museum. North Georgia College has gone through two name changes since 1958 and is now the University of North Georgia. However there has been no change in the collection name over the years.
Here are a bunch of letters and newspaper articles for a more complete story. The files are numbered by chronology 1-5.
Joseph J. Singleton - First Superintendent of the U.S. Branch Mint in Dahlonega Georgia
Findley Ridge Collection
About Findley Ridge
I am glad you enjoyed the visit and the weather was good ...... thank you for sharing the story as well as the picture
Thanks very much @JJSingleton. This is a wealth of information! I am glad to hear the display now allows viewing of the collection reverse. I suppose I need to revisit the museum (and Smithgall Woods for fly-fishing)!
The letter from Benjamin Stack to the then North Georgia College, with the 1971 appraisal of the coins is an interesting read - the 1861-D Dollar is desirable in this uncirculated condition and would probably bring very close to $10,000 at a public sale (paraphrase). Incredible!
I own some CC and Frisco gold but one day I will own one with the coveted D on it. Maybe a C too.
Thanks for sharing; was there in 2004 when I hiked the A/T, and on a Saturday they had a fair with gold panning exhibits and white lightening displays, "moonshine" was big in the 1800s too. It was interesting how mining evolved in northern Georgia into water cannon exposures of hillsides which you can still get a sense of.
Great thread!
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RE: "With that said, most of what people see in the bricks is mica and other minerals, but yes some is gold."
Ah, so that clarifies the situation. "Thar's gold in them thar bricks, but y'use might not see it."
Thanks for the added information and clarification. However, it's not clear to me why the Cane Creek clay/sand was ignored and used for bricks if there was plenty of gold remaining. Amalgamation using mercury is effective for extracting gold where the particles are so fine that sluicing does not work -- the particles are too light to fall in the ripples or get caught in miner's cloth. If that was the case, any gold in the building's bricks would not be visible to the unaided eye....just as it was probably not visible to miners in 1835-36.
Yes, there is gold in the bricks. You may not see it. But you also may see it. I am not smart enough see something glitter in a brick and determine what it is. But assays do show that what one sees could be gold.
The primary mining tools in these creeks in 1830-36 were a pic, a shovel, and a pan. The creeks were first mined for the easy stuff and then the miners moved on to next creek bed. Pretty easy to leave gold behind when the grass is a lot greener elsewhere. As better mining methods were introduced and as companies moved in all these creeks and rivers were re-worked. In fact over and over again. Even with all the re-work there is still gold in Cane Creek and it continues to be privately mined at a hobbyist level.
Joseph J. Singleton - First Superintendent of the U.S. Branch Mint in Dahlonega Georgia
Findley Ridge Collection
About Findley Ridge
I'm only an hour away but haven't been there in years (shame on me). Next nice weekend I'll have to check out the new exhibit and have a nice lunch somewhere in the area.
it's crackers to slip a rozzer the dropsy in snide
I made it out there about 6-7 years ago as a side trip to an Atlanta business meeting. Loved the exhibits. Looks like I should take another trip for a better look at the collection now that the display has been renovated.