How difficult is it to get files from the National Archives?
Longacre
Posts: 16,717 ✭✭✭
I was reading QDB’s nickel book, and he writes,
“Seeking to resolve this matter, I contacted the National Archives, and obtained a file of original correspondence, which revealed that Rotundo had no part in any aspect of the finished design [of the Jefferson nickel].”
The footnote then stated that the file was received from the National Archives on July 29, 2004.
Does anyone know how easy it is to get a file from the National Archives? I thought I read here that numismatic researcher extraordinaire, Roger Burdette, spends literally months upon months sifting through boxes at the National Archives, frequently in a dank, windowless room, with candle as the only source of light. I also thought that the index of the records was problematic, and it sometimes takes several tries before the correct box of information is located.
From the quote above, it seems that a needed file of original correspondence is easily obtained with a few keystrokes or a quick phone call to the Archives. Does anyone know if there are different processes that researchers use to get information from the National Archives?
“Seeking to resolve this matter, I contacted the National Archives, and obtained a file of original correspondence, which revealed that Rotundo had no part in any aspect of the finished design [of the Jefferson nickel].”
The footnote then stated that the file was received from the National Archives on July 29, 2004.
Does anyone know how easy it is to get a file from the National Archives? I thought I read here that numismatic researcher extraordinaire, Roger Burdette, spends literally months upon months sifting through boxes at the National Archives, frequently in a dank, windowless room, with candle as the only source of light. I also thought that the index of the records was problematic, and it sometimes takes several tries before the correct box of information is located.
From the quote above, it seems that a needed file of original correspondence is easily obtained with a few keystrokes or a quick phone call to the Archives. Does anyone know if there are different processes that researchers use to get information from the National Archives?
Always took candy from strangers
Didn't wanna get me no trade
Never want to be like papa
Working for the boss every night and day
--"Happy", by the Rolling Stones (1972)
Didn't wanna get me no trade
Never want to be like papa
Working for the boss every night and day
--"Happy", by the Rolling Stones (1972)
0
Comments
New collectors, please educate yourself before spending money on coins; there are people who believe that using numismatic knowledge to rip the naïve is what this hobby is all about.
From what I understand, some information is available online but other stuff requires, as you stated, actually going there and searching for the stuff yourself.
The name is LEE!
The difficulty arises due to the scattered nature of NARA files. Although they have tried to put all the Buffalo nickel, Lincoln cent, Jefferson nickel, etc. documents into individual sub-entries, the staff typically missed many other related documents. Also, anything beyond a few well-known coins, or modern commemoratives and you are on your own in finding all the material. There are many boxes (the “AI” series of newer material delivered to NARA in the 1970s-90s) with individual sub-entries covering most medal and coin designs issued since the 1920s. But, most files are either incomplete, or contain only a few documents – not the extensive correspondence one would expect. To further confuse, the same sub-entry might exist in both Washington and Philadelphia but with different content. (There are two completely different files on the Saint-Gaudens coinage – one in Philadelphia and another in Washington.) Over many years, the mint bureau itself shifted back and forth from date-order, to file accession-number, to topical-file number systems.
If any reader wants to check on a specific mint subject or coin, send me a PM and I’ll try to locate the correct entry number from my NARA inventory lists. (These are lists I made showing where certain materials are located and the actual content of volumes and boxes – not what the descriptions say.)
To search the really old stuff, they take you down this long, iron spiral staircase that creaks and groans and shifts as you step. The walls are dank stone and every sound is magnified. After a seemingly endless descent - was Dante once here?? - you reach a vast cavern lined with steel shelves and row upon row of gray boxes and musty orange volumes. Plain gray tables are also visible, and at some figures sit motionless, silent – are they dead, alive, or something in between? At a vast distance, possibly on some wall or fortress rampart, floats a great triangle encompassing a single, all-seeing eye. The only illumination comes from the single flashlight held by the archivist and the soft green glow of luminescent bacteria living on the walls. If you have a lamp with you, you may use that, otherwise the archivist will loan you a glass jar of lightening bugs.
You find a place to sit at a plain gray table and a monkish figure dressed in cassock and cowl brings your selected volumes. He has no visible face or features – not even the hands show – as he seems to levitate from row to shelf to floor. As quickly as he appeared, he fades into the gloom.
You open your volume or box and peer inside. If you want to copy a page, you must take out your government-issued pencil and write upon a government-issued sheet of grade school-lined paper. If you have obtained and are protected by certain talismans you may be allowed to make photocopies of letters (not volumes). To do this you find the one with the cowl and beg permission to make a copy. If granted – any many are denied – you will be shown to a small alcove. The monkish one removes your wallet and any cash you might have, replacing it with a small card-like “key to the mysteries of the great copier.” You are then turned abound three times and to your side will appear a gray box emitting a green pulsating light and strange metallic sounds much like some Cylon nightmare.
The rest cannot be related due to the sacred “Oath of the Dried Silver Fish” one must take before exiting.
<< <i>Sorry -- open flames are not allowed at NARA.
To search the really old stuff, they take you down this long, iron spiral staircase that creaks and groans and shifts as you step. The walls are dank stone and every sound is magnified. After a seemingly endless descent - was Dante once here?? - you reach a vast cavern lined with steel shelves and row upon row of gray boxes and musty orange volumes. Plain gray tables are also visible, and at some figures sit motionless, silent – are they dead, alive, or something in between? At a vast distance, possibly on some wall or fortress rampart, floats a great triangle encompassing a single, all-seeing eye. The only illumination comes from the single flashlight held by the archivist and the soft green glow of luminescent bacteria living on the walls. If you have a lamp with you, you may use that, otherwise the archivist will loan you a glass jar of lightening bugs.
You find a place to sit at a plain gray table and a monkish figure dressed in cassock and cowl brings your selected volumes. He has no visible face or features – not even the hands show – as he seems to levitate from row to shelf to floor. As quickly as he appeared, he fades into the gloom.
You open your volume or box and peer inside. If you want to copy a page, you must take out your government-issued pencil and write upon a government-issued sheet of grade school-lined paper. If you have obtained and are protected by certain talismans you may be allowed to make photocopies of letters (not volumes). To do this you find the one with the cowl and beg permission to make a copy. If granted – any many are denied – you will be shown to a small alcove. The monkish one removes your wallet and any cash you might have, replacing it with a small card-like “key to the mysteries of the great copier.” You are then turned abound three times and to your side will appear a gray box emitting a green pulsating light and strange metallic sounds much like some Cylon nightmare.
The rest cannot be related due to the sacred “Oath of the Dried Silver Fish” one must take before exiting. >>
This is what I was remembering that I read somewhere.
Didn't wanna get me no trade
Never want to be like papa
Working for the boss every night and day
--"Happy", by the Rolling Stones (1972)
Seriously, the place works once you figure out the rules, but getting a handle on how everything is laid out is not a trivial task, and none of this is written down anywhere, it is just in the heads of the researchers who have gone through the process.
(The temp was only 105 -- and it's a "dry heat" so you don't feel it as much....)
The files never leave the Archives that I'm aware of and you review them (Phila.) in a 20' x 20' glass-walled area with 4 desks and as many security cameras. A $.15/copy copier is available for your use.
The correspondence files are my favorite. Mostly internal letters and reports. Philadelphia has incoming and outgoing files with Washington and the other Mints. What's missing from the outgoing in Phila may be in the Washington incoming. Can be a bit of a puzzle. Some attachments are mentioned in the letters but not attached. Much of the reporting is mundane, "we worked 16 hours overtime last week at a cost of $300.", but there are gems such as the number of dies used for each denomination, obverse and reverse, for 1956, and the new silver dollar program for 1964.
When in Philly, tell the spouse you are researching your family roots as those records are stored in the same facility. That way she won't complain about you wasting time on coins.
Joe