Philadelphia, San Francisco and Carson silver coin mintage 1870-1872
RogerB
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Does this help any specialists, especially Carson Mint folks? Excerpt dated January 16, 1882.
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Amazing these handwritten records.... no doubt supported by handwritten tabulations supplied to the accounting department.... Cheers, RickO
What is the context of this report? Fiscal year mintages?
Why isn't the fourth column given the header of 1873, and where are the 1872-S and 1873-S dollars?
Looks like this is fiscal year. Add up 1870 and 1871 dollars for CC and you get 12,462, which is the mintage reported for 1870-CC dollars in reference guides. The other numbers, however, don't add up. Mintage of 71-CC, 72-CC and 73-CC dollars should add up to 6,826, and the numbers above add up to 5,826, so perhaps 1,000 1873-CC dollars were made in FY '74.
Keeper of the VAM Catalog • Professional Coin Imaging • Prime Number Set • World Coins in Early America • British Trade Dollars • Variety Attribution
OK, just looked up 70-CC and 73-CC on CoinFacts to find the following, so disregard my conjecture about 73-CC mintage in FY '74.:
1870-CC:
The 1870-CC, the first Carson City dollar issue, was minted to the extent of just 11,758, the total of monthly production figures per Mint records (or, per long-standing tradition, 12,462). (12,462 is a figure calculated and published by the Mint in the mid-1880s and cannot be substantiated today; R.W. Julian and Randall Wiley both checked the original monthly figures and arrived at the number of 11,758.)
1873-CC:
In 1873 the Carson City Mint produced only 2,300 standard silver dollars. Emphasis later in the year was on a new silver denomination, the trade dollar, examples of which were minted continuously from 1873 through 1878. Mintage was 1,000 in January and 1,300 in March. R.W. Julian suggests the following: (Letter to the author, March 20, 1992 ) "If the 2,300 were not called for by the silver depositor, it is likely that they would have been melted, and his bullion returned to him. It is my opinion, however, that all the coins were paid out and then perhaps redeposited for trade dollar coinage a few weeks later."
Keeper of the VAM Catalog • Professional Coin Imaging • Prime Number Set • World Coins in Early America • British Trade Dollars • Variety Attribution
The Mints did not melt coins for which seigniorage had been reported. Bullion, once paid for, was not returned - it was government property. Depositors could not request that specific coins be made from their deposit.
So where are the 1872-S and 1873-S dollars?
The letter is addressed to Senator John Sherman. It says in part:
“Enclosed I send you the data in regard to the coinage of silver at the United States Mints from 1870 to 1873 and the export of domestic coin by ports and countries.” This is followed by brief comments about bullion deposits at NYAO, then a 2-page table of which the excerpt is the first section. The next section is titled “Exports of U.S. Silver Coin from the Ports named” and a third section is titled “Exports of U.S. Silver Coin to the Countries named.”
There is no mention of missing data or the period covered although FY would be consistent with budgeting and appropriations. There is no follow-on letter in this or the next volume.