Circulated Gold Dollars
pocketpiececommems
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It's amazing how little these things are and for some of them to get the wear they have. Did they carry them in there pocket or coin purse?
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njcc
<< <i>Keep in mind that when these circulated men did not have pockets in their pants as we do now.
njcc >>
Exactly. Coins were kept in a small coin purse, usually leather.
<< <i>I am surprised that some aren't found metal detecting because some had to be lost with how small they were. Has anyone ever found a $1 gold piece metal detecting? >>
I am not sure about detecting, however I have heard a story of one found inside a chicken's gizzard.
If you happened to have a gold dollar (which would have been unusual after the early 1850s), you would probably have taken care not to lose it.
As for the even tinier California fractional gold pieces, Don Kagin says in his book that it's likely that they were regarded as souvenirs rather than as money. He says that, at the time the book was written, he hadn't seen any contemporary accounts of the fractional gold pieces in use as money.
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<< <i>I am surprised that some aren't found metal detecting because some had to be lost with how small they were. Has anyone ever found a $1 gold piece metal detecting? >>
Gold is one of the trickiest things to find with a metal detector, because it's found in the same range as aluminum--pull tabs, bottle caps, pieces of aluminum cans. Those small pieces are present in unbelievably large numbers in the areas most likely to be hunted (yards, parks, boulevards, etc). I've dug thousands and thousands of pieces of aluminum and found exactly 1 piece of gold on land, and that was a small gold ring that sounded just like every other pull tab I've ever dug.
That said: I arranged for my metal detecting club to detect a turn-of-the-century amusement park and adjacent farm field. The park yielded a few things, but I was walking across the field next to a friend who casually dug a weak signal and popped out a gold $1. He was in shock. It was entirely unexpected. It's very rare, but it does happen.
--Severian the Lame
The only way Easterners could get gold coins was to go to the gold brokers and pay a premium in greenbacks for it.
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<< <i>Gold wasn't in circulation in 1874 (except in California).
The only way Easterners could get gold coins was to go to the gold brokers and pay a premium in greenbacks for it. >>
In 1869 Jay Gould attempted to corner the gold market and their might have been a premium in that year. In response, the US Government released gold from the Treasury. Between 1873 and 1874 the Philadelphia mint made over 2 million Double Eagles. Where did they go? If they only circulated in California why make them in Phila?
Greenbacks traded at a discount to gold backed paper notes. A holder of Greenbacks could not have exchanged them for a $20 Double Eagle. A holder of $20 in gold backed notes could.
<< <i>Keep in mind that when these circulated men did not have pockets in their pants as we do now.
njcc >>
I'm no expert on pockets but a google search indicates pockets came into use in the late 1700's. I imagine small coins were kept in a small change purse so they wouldn't be lost and the change purse was kept in a pocket.
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
Greenbacks traded at a discount to gold (and what few gold-backed notes there were at the time) from the end of 1861 (when banks stopped redeeming their banknotes at par in gold) until January 1, 1879, when the legislation that provided for greenbacks to be redeemed at par in gold took effect.
Although gold certificates first appeared in 1865, the earliest issues generally stayed within the confines of banks and clearing houses and didn't circulate. The first issue of gold certificates that circulated generally were the Series of 1882.
National Gold Banknotes were authorized in 1870, but generally only circulated in California and were not receivable for import duties or interest on the public debt.
(Similarly, silver certificates did not appear until the Series of 1878.)
As you noted, gold coins were still minted in Philadelphia during this period because they were necessary for three very important things: payment of import duties, interest on the public debt and buying products from merchants and others in foreign countries.
Import duties were paid by merchants to the Federal government and interest on the public debt was paid by the Federal government to bondholders (some of which were located in the US and some of which were located in foreign countries).
In addition to import duties, any merchant who wanted to buy something from someone in a foreign country (say a manufacturer in France) would have needed gold to do so, since foreigners generally didn't accept greenbacks.
edited to add: The astute reader will note that greenbacks didn't enter circulation until March 1862, so what was trading at a discount to gold from December 1861 to March 1862 were banknotes issued by commercial banks (called Obsolete Notes or Broken Banknotes). I didn't want to mess up my first sentence, so I slid past that detail.
Check out the Southern Gold Society
I like the story about the duck that couldn't fly because it had too many heavy gold nuggets in its gizzard. The duck couln't have traveled far in that condition, but nobody located the mother lode.
Eastern banks refused to accept them as being equivalent to gold but only as equivalent to green backs.
The Kidder National Gold Bank of Boston never circulated their notes. The bank officers went on to have a sucessful brokerage firm - Kidder-Peabody.