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1934 Transfer Advice for $8 million in gold.
RogerB
Posts: 8,940 ✭✭✭✭✭
This transfer advice might be of interest to members.
[RG104 Entry UD 87 Box 2\Folder 1]
Notice that gold was shipped via registered mail.
3
Comments
$33,862.50 in DOUBLE EAGLES?
Neat trick.
Yea, how'd they get the 2.50? Throw in a $2.50 piece into each bag, or cut them up?
"Gold coin (new value)..."
1 pouch = 1000 coins @ $33.8625 (.9675 * $35) each in gold.
Keeper of the VAM Catalog • Professional Coin Imaging • Prime Number Set • World Coins in Early America • British Trade Dollars • Variety Attribution
Delivered by US Postal? (If so, both are/were Gov't agencies, so if lost or stolen it's Peter pays Paul and the tax payer is out)
"Keep your malarkey filter in good operating order" -Walter Breen
Old value was $20 per coin. New Value was $35 per coin. The .50 still doesn't make sense unless they were using the weight rather than the face value in determining the amount.
I don't think that the Fed used the USPS for such deliveries.
Two days from Chicago to Denver. Undoubtedly went by train or truck along with some heavily armed guards.
The post office is the same but yet different.
Many valuable items still travel via USPS Registered Mail, but many also travel via faster methods with little apparent disadvantage.
Personally, I'll take the slow boat and make sure the items get there.
“In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock." - Thomas Jefferson
My digital cameo album 1950-64 Cameos - take a look!
The mail went by train. Any serious train had one or more mail cars.
In 1934, I might hate to think how tortuous it would have been to send a truck from Chicago to Denver. Possible, I suppose, but nothing like today.
@messydesk a hat tip for your astute and excellent math.
RE: "Old value was $20 per coin. New Value was $35 per coin."
Ummm...almost --- Old value was $20/coin; new value was $33.8625/coin. Old double eagle had 0.9675 T oz. of fine gold.
Mint and Treasury routinely shipped coins and bullion by Post Office either parcel post or registered. This was cheaper and safer than using Adams Express and other private companies. Gold coin was packed in boxes containing $40,000 (8 bags) tightly wedged in sawdust, in wooden boxes with metal straps. Large shipments had extra guards but they were Post Office guards, not Treasury. At that time the Post Office was very profitable and self-insured mail. Like the Mints and BEP, the PO paid its profits into the government, and these exceeded annual appropriations.
Would have been a fairly easy drive on US-Highway 6, but even easier on a train, and I am sure that that is how it traveled.
Postal trucks only took mail between the railway stations and post offices. Except for Air Mail, everything went by train. Sorting was done on the trains.
Wow 7 1/2 tons...15,ooo... pounds...of gold coins, I bet it went by train...all in one box car.
One of my old bosses had a restaurant and gas station on U.S. Route 66 from 1937, and from what he related to me, every single advancing year made a difference in improving early road conditions. Everybody was still figuring out the finer details of mass automobile and truck travel during the 1930s and it took the needs of the Second World War to really upgrade the roads to what we remember today. The early 1930s were tougher. If you could travel by train, you did that.
Yep. 8.8457 tons of double eagles.
Now that is heavy.
The coins were indeed shipped by the Post Office Department. Long distance trains had Railway Post Office cars attached to them, and letter mail was also processed along the way.
Pete
Large quantities of currency and coin were shipped by government agencies via the US Postal Service.
I recently added this item to my collection of Colorado stuff. It is a shipping tag that would have been tied to a canvas bag of cash or coin, shipped via US Post Office registered mail from the Denver Branch of the Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank to the main branch of that bank in late October 1921. The value of the shipment was stated on the tag as "$15,000". So it was probably gold coin or paper currency.
Some say that stamp collecting is "dead". But there are collectors for this type of thing because it is still significantly valued and because it is genuinely rare. Cancelled stamps that have been removed from an envelope can (rarely) have value. Rare stamps that are still "on cover" (entire envelope, or in this case a shipping tag, with stamp, addresses, postmarks, etc) are always worth more. Sometimes a lot more. This particular tag is interesting because it has a block of four of the $1 violet-black Franklin "perf 10" (10 perforations per two centimeters) issue of 1916, (Scott Catalog #478). One of these used on-cover is rare. A block of four on cover is extremely rare. The tag also has a 20-cent light-ultramarine Franklin "perf 11" issue of 1917 (Scott Catalog #515), a 50-cent red-violet Franklin "perf 11" issue of 1917 (Scott Catalog #517), and a pair of 2-cent carmine Washington offset printing plate type VI (Scott catalog #528A). At the time (1921) the first class letter rate was 2-cents. So most 2-cent stamps of the era are quite common (although the 528A version is a little bit scarcer). Higher-denomination stamps are generally rarer, especially on cover.
That is really interesting... $8+million in gold coin shipped by the Postal Service.... What a story a train robbery would have made... .they would still be making movies about that...
Cheers, RickO
I stand corrected.
Dcarr - very nice find numismatically, philateliclly and historically.