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Last 1933 gold shipped from New Orleans to Denver
RWB
Posts: 8,082 ✭
The following letter indicates the final shipment of gold from New Orleans to one of the other mints. After this date, only small quantities of scrap and coin were shipped out.
Date: Nov 14, 1933
To: New Orleans Assay Office
From: Ross, Director of Mint
“Your daily statement of Nov. 7 indicates you have on hand $1,307,783.00 in gold bullion.”
“…have this bullion forwarded to the Mint at Denver as early as practicable…”
Date: Nov 14, 1933
To: New Orleans Assay Office
From: Ross, Director of Mint
“Your daily statement of Nov. 7 indicates you have on hand $1,307,783.00 in gold bullion.”
“…have this bullion forwarded to the Mint at Denver as early as practicable…”
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Does this mean that whatever gold was inside the various mints was not subject to the prevailing laws that citizens had to abide by? If so, were did it all go? Fort Knox wasn't being used as a repository yet.
A very interesting letter with 1.3 million being sent to Denver, where they weren't minting any gold coinage, and having daily accounting makes for even more suspense in the ebb and flow of gold bullion in this country during 1933.
The assay offices accepted foreign coins, bullion and scrap, and provided assaying and refining services for a fee of ½ of 1%. After 1933, the government got out of this business and let private companies do the refining/assaying work. Most of the Assay offices were closed immediately (Deadwood, Salt Lake, etc.), and others soon afterward.
The Roosevelt administration began transferring gold and silver to inland vaults in August 1933. The concern was poor security and potential invasion, particularly from Japan. (FDR, from his perspective as a former Asst Sec of the Navy, understood how weak the US military had been allowed to become under Coolidge and Hoover.)
Gold held in the mints was subject to the same regulations as that at the Treasury and Federal Reserve, etc. Most US gold was already controlled by the government in 1932 – businesses didn’t want the stuff because it cost money to store and paid no interest. Gold also lost value during transport. Here’s a letter to Ft. Knox from 1937:
“…you had a considerable amount of sweeps gathered during the operation of transferring the gold to the vaults at Fort Knox.”
“…send these sweeps to the Mint at Denver to be reduced and assayed. The Mint will report to you the value of the gold recovered.”
A month later Denver was authorized to keep the gold bar made from Ft. Knox sweeps. Although the Ft. Knox facility was now “lighter” by the weight of the sweeps bar, Mint HQ said to continue reporting the invoiced bar values. Denver added the bar to it’s inventory.
That's interesting - I thought the New Orleans Assay Office ceased operations in 1931, when the Mint building was transferred to the Department of Justice for use as a prison.
Even though the Mint ceased coining gold in 1909, I believe it still had about $3.7 million of gold on hand at the end of fiscal 1910 (July 1910). I haven't reviewed the Mint annual reports past 1910, but I will when I have a chance, to see how much gold was deposited after the Mint became an Assay Office.
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Gold coin – both us and foreign – was stuffed into the Denver, San Francisco and Philadelphia Mints, and the NY Assay office. The main reason for melting all the coins was to save space. Melting was expensive and Sec Morgenthau was opposed to melting US coinage, but had no choice given safety and storage needs. The US was custodian for more than $2.5 billion in foreign-owned gold, and they had to protect that, too.
511 1/1/1926 – 2/28/1926 New Orleans
512 3/1/1926 – 6/24/1932 New Orleans
513 7/1/1932 – 9/13/1935 New Orleans
514 9/24/1935 – 8/26/1938 New Orleans
Daily cashier's statements exist for all the mints and assay offices from 1913 to 1942. New Orleans' statements end in 1942.
For example, on June 6, 1934 all of the Stone Mountain halves held at Philadelphia (1,000,000) were melted and transferred to the bullion account. They had -1- Oregon Trail half in stock.
Silly question - to what street address were the post-1931 letters sent?
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Man, that stuff was beautiful.
Wonder where it was all from?
"Assayer in Charge
"United States Assay Office,
"New Orleans, Louisiana"
I grew up in Denver and in the mid 1960's went on a school field trip to the Denver Mint. I also saw the gold bars and ingots he mentioned. There was also gold nuggets and coins. They were on display behind bars and glass. Way cool for a YN.
Thanks for the information Roger.
Thanks.
I guess I'll just have to ask Greg where the NO Assay Office moved to after it left the Mint building.
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